


Pride Is For Cowards

by Doroleia



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Chewbacca is kinda like Rey's dad amirite?, Dancing, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Leia is dead, Mildly Dubious Consent, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey, Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Reylo - Freeform, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, the force made me do it, virgins in space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doroleia/pseuds/Doroleia
Summary: He doesn't regret it as he shoves his elbow up in her delicate face.He doesn't regret it as he hears the cartilage in her nose crunch on impact.He doesn't regret it as she loses conciousness and he has to lower her down to the floor.He kind of regrets it as he sees her coming to, face streaked with blood but otherwise looking unaffected by him besting her. And then, when she spits the blood out like it was nothing, he feels a stirring of emotion in him that has nothing to do with regret and everything to do with regard and admiration.So noticing those feelings, that's when he regrets breaking her nose.Rey finds herself at the mercy of a merciless Supreme Leader. As a ward of sorts to ensure the Resistance behaves, Rey takes up residence at Kylo Ren's flagship. If the past is finally dead, then maybe it's time to look forward.





	1. Slipping, sliding

**Author's Note:**

> I have some ideas for where I want this story to go, but haven't written much of it down. Please leave kudos if you'd like to see more of this or a comment if you have anything to say on where you think it could go!
> 
> English is not my first language, so apologies for any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes I've missed, I have no one to beta for me since I'm sadly all alone in my Reylo obsession.

When everything changes it's not how they expected it to. They thought it would be a blaze of glory, a cataclysmic event. Something to be whispered about at night, deserving of songs written about it. But what happens is such an anticlimactic end people are hard pressed to really believe it. How could their general, their shining beacon of hope, who have fuelled their fires and soothed their bleeding hearts and never wavered in her belief of a galaxy free from opression, how could she be stopped by something as mundane as a bad step and a rusty cut? An undetected poisoning of her blood?

Instead of being accompanied by fire and explosions her death is stillness. Her passing is a breath finally let go of.

The few left of the resistance are at a loss for how to proceed. Had they still had a fleet to speak of, allies to lend them support, then of course the struggle would have continued. But as it is now? Some 40 odd rebels with varying degrees of useful skills? They would be accepting death and annihilation where they to continue. Without Leia's connections and powers of persuasion they have lost their last hope.

The news of her passing has barely made it all the way round their little camp before her son reaches out to them. It is an even more sombre Poe that searches Rey out where she and Chewie sits by a campfire in silent mourning. He asks them both to join him and a few others in the makeshift war room at the end of the day that started with Leia letting go.

His holo is large enough to fill an entire wall, a wall of Kylo Ren's head, shoulders and a quarter of a torso.  
_"Your leader is dead. With her I can only surmise the rebellion dies as well. Concider this a testament to your Supreme Leader's benevolence. I give you this one chance: lay down what few weapons you might still have left and come swear alligeance to the First Order and I shall spare your lives. I will gracefully agree to let you discuss this amongst yourselfes before coming to a decision. I expect to have an answer within two standard hours. Rest assured I know where you are hiding, and should you so choose I will grant you the mercy of a quick death."_  
His image flickers out, the absence of the blue light makes Rey's eyes flood orange, reminding her of endless, hopeless, listless days on Jakku.

"Yield or die is what we have to choose from." Poe sums it up for the chosen few before him that didn't think the situation could become much graver but have now been proven wrong.

"We can flee?" Finn offers up.  
_You flee the order once and suddenly you think it's always the answer..._ Rey shouldn't be snarky, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Not to Finn.  
She chalks it up to the stress and the pressing panic of the situation. To make up for her errant thought she chimes in:  
"We could load everyone up in the Falcon again, be on our way long before he comes here with his troops?"

Poe looks out at their faces around him. He sees how tired they all are. He thinks on the faces gathered around the fires in the camp they've set up on this backwater moon. They are tired too. They have been running on nothing but the promise of the turning tide for so long now, and with Leia gone? How can he ask them to keep on fighting, hoping, giving up their lives for a cause that now seem to be played out?  
He'll put it to a vote, but he will be open with how he feels. Their new general will vote to disband them. He will fail them the first and last thing he does. But maybe this time he can spare a few of their lives, even give them a chance to live them as well.

 

Once all the members have cast a vote and the side for surrender comes out, barely, as 'victorious' it turns out they have voted for it with the addition that Rey will be in charge of delivering their answer and negotiate the terms, in person, at First Order terf. They all know she has fought Kylo Ren and lived to tell the tale, and that she has trained with Master Skywalker. Somehow that has convinced them of her being a full-fledged jedi, perfectly capable of meeting with Kylo on equal terms.  
As they have no guarantee that Kylo won't kill them even if they yield, and the thought of bending the knee and swear allegiance to their nemesis is not an enticing one, they fear that some amongst them would undoubtedly break down in defiance, unable to fake loyalty. Even if they all become adept actors and liers, to trust Kylo at his word would be folly. So they want to use Rey. Reasoning that she will be better equipped with the patience and calm of the Jedi that's needed to not fuck this up. And the ability to shield any traitorous thoughts.  
They also have faith in her being able to see into his mind, discerning his intentions. Should she feel his promise of letting them keep both life and freedom being anything other than true, they will have the chance to lightspeed their way out of the quadrant as fast as they can.

Rey herself isn't as sure of her abilites to discern truth from lie from halftruth from 'a version of the truth' as the rest of them seem to be, but she can't refuse. Not when they all seem to harbour a heartwarming, albeit unfounded, amount of hope in her.

She still hasn't told anyone of the bond she and Kylo share. They don't know that they sometimes find themselves, inexplicably, in the presence of the other, even when they are lightyears apart. And they don't know of what happened on board the Supremacy. They don't know she sought him out, thinking she could tip the scales in their favour but failed. They don't know under what circumstances Snoke died and they can never know that she let the dark in and fought by Kylo Ren's side and how tempted she was to stay there. By his side, in the darkness. And she will never be able to tell anyone of the dreams she's had of Ben, Kylo, whoever, since that fight. Of how conflicted they leave her feeling every night, as she wakes with her breath in her throat, her heart rhythm off the charts and her whole midsection in tight, wet, burning heat.

So she concedes, mostly out of shame and remorse. But in order for the rebels to have any chance of running away, the Falcon must stay behind. Rey effectively feels as if she's offered up as a sacrificial lamb. Should the rebels flee in the Falcon, what chance could she possibly have of getting out alive? They don't even know she's done it once before, thus making the peril they are willing to put her in hurt that much more.  
Finn volunteers to go with her and she's eternally grateful to him for that. She struggles with her conscience for about a second when she sees the look in Rose's eyes, her so recently having put her own life in danger to save his, and here he is, willingly risking it yet again. But then she thinks of going back into the belly of the beast, alone just like the last unsuccessful time, and she just thanks him, with all her heart, and make a mental note of promising Rose to get him back to her in working order.

 

When the two standard hours are up, Rey feeling like only minutes have passed, the blue holo of Kylo's inflated head flickers back on the wall.

"Rebels. You are the last of the once marginally relevant resistance. Will you insist on clinging on to the past or will you follow the rest of the galaxy into the future?" Kylo Ren's voice is hollow, flat, uninterested, but Rey recognizes the words on the past and the future he spoke to her with such passionate conviction, not too long ago. Would the future he offered her then have been any different from the future he now speaks of?

Poe begins to answer, "Supreme Leader, we would like to send an emissary..." but Rey is seized by a mad impulse and moves quickly in front of the holotransmitter, blocking Poe out. If Kylo reacts to seeing her it doesn't show. His face as blank and his eyes as unseeing.  
"Kylo, I'm coming over to talk through the terms of our surrender. Will you send a ship to pick me up? We seem to have encountered some problems with the Falcon". The lie about the ships status falls from Rey's lips on a whim, maybe if he doesn't expect them to be able to, her friends will have more of a chance of getting away?

He answers without delay, seemingly without any concideration, "It's on it's way", and then the transmission ends.

 

An Upsilon-class shuttle comes in for landing about 20 minutes later.  
Rey and Finn stand next to each other, watching it glide down to the makeshift landing pad.  
”Do you think they'll even let you come with me?” Rey whispers, suddenly nervous, to Finn. ”Maybe they're afraid you'll influence the other Stormtroopers to follow your example?”

Finn looks at the shuttle as he answers ”Yeah, I'm more worried they'll want to make an example of me and not let me leave...”

That thought hadn't even occured to Rey, her nervousness doubling with it.

Four troopers disembark, flanks the side of the bridge two by two and waits silently.

"I guess, I'll see you guys around then?" Rey has never been very good with goodbyes, she hasn't had much practice, after all. Finn on the other hand is crushing Rose and Poe in a tearsoaked hug, having picked up on the habit of it a lot quicker than her.  
She stands halfway up the landingpad and waits for them to say their goodbyes and their promises of returning and/or staying safe.  
Rey feels a flicker of annoyance bubbling up in her when she looks at the huddle, a feeling she doesn't quite recognize as being her own. Feeling mildly annoyed with Finn might not be as uncommon a feeling for her, but twice now in the span of a couple of hours? And with such sharpness? She casually tries to expand her grip on the Force, to see if there is another source for her aggravation. Taking a deep breath, she reaches out, her focus on Kylo, Ben, whatever. For a second she feels nothing but impatience and annoyance, but that quickly gives way for a feeling of surprise, then cautious content followed by apprehension before she's pushed out, forcibly. She's back at the mouth of the shuttle, and this time when she looks at the huddle of the three closest things to a family she has, she feels nothing but compassion.

Once onboard they sit along the wall, Stormtroopers at their every side. When Finn offers her his hand she doesn't even hesitate. They clamp their damp hands together, trying to both give and get reassurance and courage.  
When they arrive at the Harbinger, they are met by more troopers who ushers them onwards in silence, to meet with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.

Rey would have liked to keep on to her hold on Finn's hand, but she's quite certain that would not imbue the respect she will need Kylo Ren to feel for her if she's to succeed in her task. The troopers let her keep her quarterstaff and they didn't even bother patting Finn down in search of weapons. Apparently they're no longer considered a threat to his Supreme Leadership. Maybe Kylo feels that nothing is.  
_More the fool him, both Finn and I have proven able to keep our own when faced with him before._ Rey draws on the memory of her standing above him in the snow of Starkiller Base, of how the fight for the Skywalker lightsaber ended with her besting him. The infinitesimal amount of courage that kindles inside of her is quickly squashed when they're ushered inside the chamber where these negotiations are apparently to take place.

Kylo Ren sits in the middle of a long table, General Hux at his right and a Stormtrooper at his left. Captain Phasma's successor, presumably, though sadly lacking her chromed armour. Following them are two more high ranking First Order-officials on either side. Rey and Finn are vastly outnumbered. 

This is the first time Rey's laid eyes on Ben, Kylo, whoever, since she shut the door on him on Crait. But she has seen him since. Almost every night she has dreamt of him. Dreams of them fighting one another, dreams of them fighting others while standing back to back, dreams of them fighting _for_ the other, to keep each other out of harms reach. Dreams of them screaming at each other, out of anger, out of fear. Dreams of them fighting, dreams of their bodies tangled together, sometimes decidedly _not_ fighting. (Or if they are, it's not the kind of fight that leaves room for only one winner. In those dreams they scream each others names, not in anger or frustration, but in need and passion.)   
  
Those are the dreams she has to conceal, that she can't afford to let herself remember. Not now, not ever. Not because she think's he'll be able to reach into her mind and pick those out, but because she's convinced he'll be able to see it on her face. She feels the shame blossoming out on her cheeks, her neck, her chest. Her whole vision is turning red, it seems, but that might also be from how hard her heart is beating her blood around her entire system, it might just have ruptured every bloodvessel in her eyes.  
Thank the stars for Finn, with a sharp elbow and a step on her toes she's brought out of her reveries and back to the present. She draws on the Force to center herself, to will her mind to tranquililty.  
She takes a step forward as she starts her speach by saying his name, Kylo Ren, but she is immidiately brought to a halt by General Hux. In a voice filled with annoyance and reluctance he states:  
”The Supreme Leader will be adressed as The Supreme Leader and _only_ as The Supreme Leader. Consider this your first and only reprimand, any more transgressions will be met with dire consequences.”  
Rey suspects Hux himself has first hand knowledge of those consequences. Every time the phrase 'supreme leader' falls out of his mouth it looks as if it's accompanied by barbed wire, or soured moof milk.  
She tries again, and she should be credited for how diligently she does her best to keep any trace of venom out of her voice.  
”Supreme Leader. I am here to discuss the terms of the Resistance surrender. It is my understanding that you, in all your... magnanimousness... promised to pardon the few of our movement that's still left alive, given that we put down our arms and disband.”  
  
She gets no answer, only a blank stare that will not quite meet her eyes. She does her best to convince herself that he cannot reach into her mind, at least not without her knowing it. She swallows thickly and as it doesn't seem like he's about to say anything, she feels pressured into continuing her plea.  
”So after having put it to a vote, we have agreed to do that. The resistance is no more. We now hope for safe passage so that we can leave the base and start our lives anew, away from the fighting and rebellion.” She feels like she's just pulling words out of her ass by now, desperately wishing they had gone over what she should say some more, not just how she was supposed to discern any foul play from the Order in general and Ren in particular.

Kylo averts his gaze from somewhere in the vicinity of Rey to look down to his left with the slightest inclination of his head. The Stormtrooper at his side immediately speaks up, with the distorted voice that comes with the white, anonymous bucket. ”The First Order will, as a sign of good will, lend the vessels and personnel needed to help you in this endevour. General Hux has kindly agreed to lend the disbanded Resistance all the Stormtroopers needed to facilitate a smooth relocation of your members. Furthermore, the Supreme Leader has, in his infinite benignity, secured safe housing for as many reformed rebels as needed, on different locations throughout the First Order-controlled galaxy.”

At Rey's side, Finn is unable to keep his cool and stay quiet and in the most indignant voice ever he sputters ”Are you kidding?! You think we will board your ships and just 'let you' relocate us? Split us all up while you keep tabs on us? Are we gonna be your stay-in prisoners, is that it? Oh _hell_ no!”  
Rey can tell he is working himself up and that there is no way this will end with him not getting blasted to bits or tossed out of an air lock if she lets him keep this up. So she steps up and in front of Finn, shielding him from view with her body.  
  
”Supreme Leader, please hear me, this is not the terms on which we came here to settle. Being monitored by the Order will not feel like freedom to any of us. I realize it won't be easy, but I ask this of you, most... amiable... Supreme Leader, that you condescend to show us this trust so that we can prove ourselves worthy of it.” Rey can't help it, talking to Kylo fracking Ren like this without throwing up is a struggle. To keep a straight face and not show any signs of her disgust is too much to ask of her, but she hopes her sentiment at least shines through.

This time Kylo is looking down slightly to his right and instantly Hux is reanimated. Apparently Kylo, for reasons unknown, won't speak for himself.  
”And then what insurance would we have that you don't intend to venture out into the galaxy to try and scour up new alliances? How are we to trust that you people will stay true to your word?” He looks even more disgusted and sour-faced than before, every word out of his mouth a lash to his back, bitter bile in his mouth.

The chill running down Rey's back is cold enough to freeze her entire body into statue-like stillness. Even the act of drawing breath is like a battlefield inside her chest. Suddenly she wishes she had come alone. The realisation is instant, she knows what she has to do, but with Finn by her side complications arise. He will fight this, still she knows it's the only way. The slight twitching in Kylo's eyes suggest he can see the exact moment Rey comes to the conclusion he probably foresaw this entire time. Maybe this whole thing was by his orchestrations from the start. 

”I'll be your insurance. I will stay behind for as long as it takes for you to feel confident that whatever threat the resistance might have composed is neutralized.”

Finn's reaction is like warm water over her frozen body. Her friend, her refuge, her defender and brother in arms.  
”What Rey, no! No, this is not how we do this! This isn't how we surrender, by giving you up! No freedom is worth that! What, what...” he runs out of words but that's all the same, in her eyes he can see her resolution. He's pretty sure she uses her Force abilities to calm him down because he goes from flustered panic to subdued acceptance in the blink of an eye. ”Rey... What am I supposed to do without you?” he asks in a heartbreaking voice.

”You'll figure something out.” she tells him, her grip on her quarterstaff convulsive enough to render her knuckles white and the skin of her palm to break. She smiles through the pain, willing her voice to sound reassuring and her eyes to seem calm and sincere.

At the table Kylo Ren rises. ”I find these terms acceptable. Rey will stay here as my guest while the resistance relocates. Once I am satisfied this has been done without the intention of any future rebellion, she will be free to leave to where ever she wishes to go. The traitor will carry this message to your base and ensure the hasty retreat of the rest of your organization. Make sure there are always channels open for communications between you and the First Order, as I am confident in you wishing to keep in touch with your... friend...” the last word sounds like it should have four letters, given the tone he uses for it. Then he turns in a flurry of black capes and cowls and dissapears through the back. Half a dozen Stormtroopers immediately flocks around them, ready to escort Finn back to the shuttle. As no one has told her differently, Rey assumes she is allowed to accompany him back to the hangar. This time they don't hold each others hand. 

”How will I explain this to them down there?” Finn is lamenting, searching her eyes for answers she doesn't have. ”How can I expect to be able to convince them of leaving you behind, Rey?”

”This isn't goodbye, and you're not leaving me behind. I'm just staying here for a little while, to make sure you're safe. Anyone would have done the same, but no one would be as aptly suited for this mission as I am.” She presses his hands between hers, willing him to see how true this is. Slightly pulling on the Force to help her voice carry the confidence she wishes she could feel. ”I'll be fine, Finn!” The Force gently creeping in with her words, somewhat calming them both.

”I love you, Rey. You're family. I can't lose you.”

”We will always find our way back to each other Finn, I'm sure of it.” she whispers in his ear as they hug goodbye. She still don't get the whole idea with hugging and goodbye-ing, all it does is hurt. She holds the tears back long enough for her to see his ship break atmo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be kind as english is not my first language, but regardless: all sorts of feedback extremely welcome.


	2. Being confused in a new habitat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey is, consecutively, bored, confused, frustrated, angry and lastly too tired to care about misusing the few privileges granted her by Kylo.  
>  _When the text looks like this, it's to indicate Rey's private musings._

Rey stands surronded by Stormtroopers and TIE-pilots and assorted staff, but she feels alone and yet not alone enough. Two troopers separates themselves from the rest by walking up to her, flanking her sides and motioning her to follow them. Figuring her options are rather limited, she accompanies them deeper down to the ships innards.  
She tries her best to commit the way they take her to memory, _straight down, passing six corridors, then left, passing one huge room and three corridors, then a lift how many levels up? several minutes at least, then out to the left. Follow a corridor, take thr fourth one to the right and nine doors in_ , then they finally come to a stop. The troopers turn on their heels to stand vigil on each side of the door.

Rey reaches her hand up to the pad on the left hand side of the door and presses her palm to it.  
A metallic and distinctly female voice rings out.  
"New imprint aquired. Access to this room is now restricted to, Rey of the Resistance."  
The doors slide apart, the troopers remain motionless. _I guess this is my home now, then._ Rey concludes and steps inside, leaving both troopers and freedom on the other side.

\---

Rey's been sitting at her bedside, staring dejectedly out into nothing, for what feels like at least a minor portion of eternity. She might know all there is to know about waiting, but idleness? That was never her forte. Without a task or occupation she fears she might lose her mind a lot quicker than she had hoped. She still has her staff and might be able to practice on the forms, but the space is too restricted. Meditation's the only option against inaction, it seems.

She tries to empty her mind, to let go of all her fears and irritations and frustrations. She sits on the cold, unforgivingly hard floor for hours. She has no window so she can't track the ships movement and she has no clock so she can't keep track of time. All she has to listen to is her own breathing, her own heartbeat, her blood pumping it's way through her body. She focuses on her breathing, to time it with the heartbeats. She falls into herself, her own mind, and it's a vast blankness. Time matters not, her choices and her actions have no bearing in this frictionless space. She feels at peace, resigned to the situation but without feeling defeated.  
She doesn't know how long it has taken her to reach this state of indiffirent acceptance, but she isn't brought back to the room aboard the ship where she, for all intents and purposes, are being held captive, until her quiet trance is broken, not suddenly but quietly increasing in presense, by a new set of heartbeats, someone elses breathing.

She doesn't open her eyes in the same instant she realizes she's not alone, instead she draw the other presence in. She taste the texture and the light the other emits. She can't say she's surprised to know who has come to visit her. After all, who else could it ever have been?

With her eyes still closed, she asks in a quiet level voice: "How did you get in here?"  
The familiar feeling of thickening air, echoing voices and being in a vacuum is eerily absent, ergo this can't be one of their Force-bonded meetings.

His voice matches hers, it's barely breaking the silence. "This is my ship. I have unlimited access here" 

”So you mean to tell me I will have no privacy whilst being your 'guest'? That I shall have to find myself in your unasked-for company whenever you see fit, no concideration for what I might want or need?” She is slowly letting her eyes open up, not wanting to break the serenity she felt too suddenly. She'd like to ease herself into conciousness. She thus misses the look fanning over Kylo's face, a slight frown conveying mild, humorous, disbelief at her words. 

”Of course not” he starts out saying, and, as an afterthought, he adds ”Rey”. She can almost taste her name in his mouth, the cadence of his voice revealing that he doesn't find it wholly unappealing. Almost, maybe, the opposite? ”Even though your being here may be solely as a warrant that your traitorous friends won't be tempted to try anything, I still hold hope that we'll find a way to ensure your time here be as painless as possible.”

He sounds almost sincere. Rey's reminded of an old and often recurring dream of hers, in which he also speaks of wanting to make something as painless as possible for her. The skin on her face starts to smolder and she has to close her eyes before she's even had the chance to open them fully. _This is not the time to recall how he looked between your legs in those dreams, mussed-up hair sticking out in all directions and his chin glistening with me, from me, of me. Purring at me how he would make sure I'd feel no pain, only pleasure, when he'd finally claim me._  
She bites down on the inside of her cheek as hard as she endures and summons the tranquility she felt just mere minutes ago. Her face back to her normal temperature she dares to finally open her eyes.

Kylo seems to have tired of waiting for some sort of answer from her, so he breaks the, in his eyes it must seem like a weirdly tense, silence. "Tell me, Rey, what would you have me do to ease this situation for you?"  
Her eyes open at last, she looks up, up, up, to meet Kylo's. He's standing a few feet away from her position on the floor. As so often before he's looking down at her.  
She recalls her earlier boredom and want for space to move around, and she suspects she'll need some sort of outlet for what she fears will become a recurring problem of sexual frustration. She can't imagine feeling comfortable enough to do something about that herself as long as she's aboard _his_ ship.

"I'd like to be able to exercise. This room isn't big enough for that. It's not big enough for much, really." She figures it'll probably do her best to not ask for too much right away anyway. _Start with basic human needs, work yourself up to..._ She can't imagine anything she'll want that he'll grant her, besides the basics.

Kylo's frown returns, "Pledge you may be, but I actually _do intend_ for you to be my guest here, not a hostage held by force. Consider yourself free to walk, or jog if that's what you prefer, anywhere you'd like, for the time being." 

As if she could just walk out the door and find a training space, all on her own. Boredom and sexual frustration apparently leads to poor conversational skills, so she bites out "Yeah, well, I'd rather not get lost and starve to death while trying to locate a gym of some sorts. In case you've failed to notice, this is a rather large ship." 

"Rather large a ship, you say?" he answers, not matching her venomous tone, but with raised eyebrows and amusement. 

"Positively huge, I'd not be amiss to call it, I think." Are they trading banter? Is this some sort of amiable conversation between the two of them? _Dear Force, what's happening._

"Well then, let me arrange for someone to come by and escort you to the nearest training facility."

"Or you could do it right now?" She regrets sounding so eager, not wanting to give him the idea that it's his company she craves, so she adds, much too quickly, "I mean I'm bored out of my mind already". 

His eyes narrow. "You do know I'm not really here, right?" and it's accompanied by a concerned look on his face, right before he disappears.  
Rey did not know that. This bond session was so different from all their previous ones. Maybe because there aren't any other sounds to be blocked out? Maybe because they're actually close enough for the Force to not even have to strain itself connecting them? In any case, she is too bewildered to get up off the floor until someone knocks on her door. On the other side stands a trooper who, with distorted voice, tells her to follow her, that she's to bring Rey to her gym. 

\---

Rey doesn't need to be told twice but rather jumps at the opportunity to be let out of her austere prison. In her haste she almost forgets her staff, two strides out in the corridor she remembers and does some sort of pirouette mid step and almost falls over. The voice modulator in the Stormtrooper's helmet sounds like it might be malfunctioning, but then Rey realizes that the feedback-y static she heard must have been the trooper underneath trying to contain her laughter. Red in the face she stalks back, get the staff and then continue to stomp down the corridor, ahead of the trooper.  
From behind she offers up directives to Rey, when to turn left, when to turn right and finally, when to stop.  
She stands at the doorway to a large, high ceilinged, padded-floor room with a plethora of different types of weapons lining the walls.  
The trooper tells her that "I'll wait outside to show you the way back when you're done."  
  
Rey decides to test Kylo's assurance from earlier by saying "That's fine, I'll find my way back on my own thanks."  
  
To her surprise the trooper answers with a "Roger that" before walking off, leaving Rey alone.  


She hefts her staff, twirling it back and forth between her hands, weighing her options as well as the staff.  
She uses the Force to close the door behind her as she strides to the middle of the room. One wall is polished steel, it reflects the room like a mirror.  
Facing that wall, she starts out small, trying out the first form as a warm up. Her dedication to the strict training regime set up in one of the Jedi texts ensures that she repeats the movements of the first form over and over, until it melts together. Even though she's been at it for over an hour, she pauses not but fall seamlessly in to the third form, focused on defence rather than offence.  
Just moving around feels like a blessing, compared to the unknown hours spent sitting on the floor of her tiny cell. After a while, the defence-centric movements of Soresu elicits a frown on her face, _If ever there was a time for delving deeper into the more combat-centered forms, this must surely be it._  
She shakes her head, trying to clear it. Get reason back in there, _just because he's given you the bare minimum whilst holding you prisoner you forget he's actually holding you prisoner?_  
It's so like her, forgetting the bigger picture and focusing on the tiny details that's barely of consequence. Even here, in the center of the hive, at the mercy of someone who has proven merciless, she lets herself get swept away by old dreams, her mind clouded by a minute's worth of friendly conversation.  
She can feel the anger building inside of her, and it feels like a relief, a release. She doesn't even try to contain it, instead she welcomes it, let's it grow and build. It's mainly anger towards herself, at her weakness and her traitorous heart that latches on to idiotic musings that she has not given herself the permission to entertain. Her breath coming harder, in rapid bursts, she can see the edges of her vision shrinking with blood red shadows. And then she lets it explode. 

In a rage fuelled flurry she crashes into Form VI, making the most use of her quarter staff. Training equipment that isn't tethered down is thrown against an imagined opponent and against herself alike, for her to ward off and counter.  
She's barely following the movements of Niman, letting her anger and her Force guide her body. The training equipment flying at her is thrown by the Force itself, it seems, her not making any concious decisions to move them.  
When her staff is broken by a plinth flung towards her with conciderable energy she doesn't even have to register the pain in her hand from the impact or the sound of the metal in the staff snapping, before she has called a similar weapon in to her hand. It's not until she hears the tell-tale screeching sound of leather being ripped apart that she realizes this new weapon ends with sharp blades on either end.  
All the frustration and fear and hurt and anger she has felt these last day or days, she channels into the spear as she throws it. With all the air of her lungs and all the sound in her throat and all the unspoken words in her heart, the roar that follows it is enough to drown out the otherwise so unsettling noice of steel against steel, as the blade forces its way through the reflecting wall. 

She falls to her knees, looking at herself through the distance of the mirrored wall.  
_Is this how it happens? Will all the anger and sorrow and frustration open me up to the dark side? Will I be so caught up in myself that I'll miss it when it happens and then it'll be too late? Have I already gone too far?_

Inside her head she feels the presence of Kylo, not bursting in, nor forcibly demanding entry, but like a flower, gently unfolding its petals.  
_”For the love of the stars, woman! Could you maybe_ try _to keep your emotions in check?? I realize you're having some sort of existential crisis, but I have work to do! All your violent outbursts are spilling over in to me, making my control over the meeting I'm in somewhat precarious.”_

_”Yeah?” she thinks back at him, _”Afraid they will be able to finally tell the difference between righteous anger and your petulant and arbitrary outbursts and not take you seriously in the future?”_ _

__

She feels him growling and seething in her head. Her teeth grind together and she's not sure if it's his doing or her own. After a few extremely tense moments she hears him again.  
 _”If I come back to my gym to find it thrashed, I assure you you will know the full extent of my 'petulant and arbitrary' anger”_  
His presence in her mind slowly recedes, like a flower wilting. She shouts out loud after him, "Hey you'll need to feed me! If you leave me to starve I won't be held responsible for any thrashings that may or may not have occured!!" but he's already left her head. 

Looking around her at the devastation she's caused in what was apparently Kylo Ren's private training quarters, she kind of regrets letting go of all her restraints like that, but on the other hand... _Kriff it. He can more than likely get a new room or have this one put to order in no time. Let him rage all he want's, why should I care anyway._

She staggers to her feet, gathers her, now twice as many, staffs, and starts the trek back to her room for a much-needed shower but promtly gets lost on the way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any (constructive) critisism would be much appreciated. The story is not at all unfolding as planned and I'm probably gonna have to abandon what's already been written for future chapters, so I'm gonna have to wing it, I guess? Unless you have a better idea, that is!


	3. Spot the Firefly reference!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey is having a hard time adjusting to her new environment but she almost, kind of, make a friend. Spoiler alert, it's not Kylo.

Rey knows, without a doubt, that she never changed floors between leaving her room and arriving at the gym. This should narrow her search area conciderably, but it still doesn't let her find her way back.   
She's hungry, exhausted, irritated and sleepy. Somewhere deep down she realizes she could reach out for Kylo/Ben/who cares, but she would rather starve to death in these dreary corridors that ask for his help.   
Just as she's about to give up and go to sleep on the cold, hard durasteel floor in an alcove that's not looking too brightly lit up, the Stormtrooper who led her to the gym calls out to her from behind.  
”Your room's this way” and then she waits in silence for Rey to stop muttering dirty words under her breath and turn around to follow her. 

”You really could do with some sort of guiding system in here, you know. Just like names on the corridors or number on the doors or something, to help people navigate. Just saying...” Rey grumbles behind the Stormtrooper's back.

”There actually is a system in place” the trooper answers, pointing a white hand to the small, coloured dots on the top corners of the doors and some miniscule symbols carved at the base of each intersection. ”We have a nav system installed in the helmets that guides us aswell. This is your corridor, commit the symbols to memory, there's a system to how they all interact. I'm sure you'll figure it out.” Then she stops in her tracks in front of a door that looks exactly like every other door they have passed, but now that she knows to look for it, Rey notices that there actually are a constellation of red and blue dots in the right topmost corner of her door. 

”Thanks” she says in a voice that in no way whatsoever indicates gratitude, before she hurries back inside the relative familiarity that these rooms grant her. Inside stands a trolley with rations that's eerily reminiscient of the portions given to her by Unkar Plutt in exchange for her risking her life scavenging parts for him.  
_First Order standard foodstuff, guessing it's safe to bet I won't be executed tomorrow as this can't be what's given as a last meal. Silver lining, I guess..._  
She wolfs it all down, heads for the 'fresher and then crashes down on a hard and lumpy bed, lined with scratchy grey linen. If she counts the time between waking up last and now going to bed as a full days worth, this has been a long-ass day.  
A day that started with her mother figure dying, her being used as a bargaining chip and then sent off to her nemesis, gotten locked up and then gotten let out and then trashing a rather gigantic room. If she more or less passes out on that uncomfortable bed and sleeps like a happabore hit over the head, who can blame her.

–-

Kylo Ren, apparently. She awakes to thunderous knocks on her door, when she finally drags herself over to open it, the same Stormtrooper from yesterday manages to look both exasperated and relieved, even though her face is covered by the white bucket.  
”Finally! That took you long enough. I was so not looking forward to finding you hanging by your bedsheets and having to relay that to the Supreme Leader.”

Rey is still only half awake, so all she can offer up is a monosyllabic ”huh?” in response.

”Get dressed. Your precense is required in the audience chambers”, and while Rey closes the door she can hear a quiet mutter of ”like half an hour ago... Imma get blamed for this.”

Rey cleans up as best she can, washing the sleep out of her eyes and brushing her teeth with First Order standard issue toothpaste that tastes faintly of cardboard and makes her gums bleed. She puts on the same clothes she wore yesterday as those are the only ones she brought. How would one go about packing for being held hostage for an unknown passage of time? _You don't, that's how._  
Had she packed for an extended stay it would have felt all too depressing, so she brought nothing.  
She runs a hand through her hair in lieu of brushing it while walking to the door.

Her trooper sidekick (as she thinks of naming her, _to make it feel more homey here at the base, like I have pet of sorts_ ) guides her through the ship's innards. She gets to go on a horizontal elevator that switches axis all of a sudden, taking them upwards at a brake-neck speed.  
When the sidekick, at long last, halts by an opening in the wall, indicating that Rey should enter, she finds herself asking sullenly ”will you wait for me? To bring me back after?” whilst looking at the floor.

”Affirmative” the trooper answers robotically.

”Shiny” Rey mutters while turning away from her, entering the chamber.

It's not the same room where she and Finn was taken yesterday/a lifetime ago, but a smaller one. Huge table surronded by an entirely human congregation of First Order military personnel, and Kylo Ren. They're gathered around a multitude of holomaps, showing different starsystems with different fingers pointed at each one of them. Accompanying the fingers are loud, angry voices, all trying to drown out the others.

At Kylo's raised hand they all quiet. Rey stands still untill he nods at her, starts to invite her up to the table by saying ”please” but apparently thinks the better of it, a look of sour rememberance quickly passing over his features. ”The first settlements seem to have occured. Several of your former associates have chosen to return to their respective homeworlds. A small group remains at the ship.”

 _The ones originating from worlds that's been destroyed or ravaged by you and your predecessors, you mean_ , Rey doesn't even bother trying to hide her thoughts, not in her mind and not from her face. 

Kylo's face stays uncharacteristically devoid of emotion as he continues, ”We will continue to monitor them and, if you'd like, keep you updated on their progress.”  
As he turns his attention from her and back to the angry horde, she falters in her confusion. Was this what he summoned her here for? 

She reaches out to him through the Force, planting her words directly into his mind.  
 _”You couldn't have said that like this instead? You had to drag me halfway across your ship for a three second, one-way communication?”_

He doesn't even raise his eyes to her, just thinks back while giving the impression that he is actually paying attention to the heated discussion around him. _”I thought you might appreciate the chance to stretch your legs. Force knows you won't be allowed back in my gym again.” A short pause in which he says something to the loudest general in a voice that effectively silences the shouting. Then his voice is back in her head. _”Maybe had you been here when asked to,_ an hour ago _, I might have been inclined to discuss the circumstances regarding your particular situation more at length, but you, apparently, had to be stubborn about it.”__

__

_”Petulant...”_ she can't help the thought that drifts up to the surface, shooting down the bond quicker than she can reign it back in. As she's been slowly backing out of the room during this silent exchange, she finds herself on the other side of the doors as they slam closed mere centimetres in front of her nose. She can feel the satisfaction and not a small amount of vindictive pride heavy in the Force, Kylo obviously having used a lot more force than neccessary to shut the door in her face. Dust and pieces of plaster fall from the doorframe as they shake from the impact.

”Shall we?” her trooper sidekick asks without paying any mind to the heavy bang.  
”We shall” Rey answers in a toneless voice. 

 

It takes a mere couple of hours for Rey to wildly regret her outburst yesterday. Having paced the tiny room to and fro maybe one million times and then trying to meditate and failing spectacularly to empty her mind, she finally relents and pokes her head out of the door. The sidekick is standing vigil, _praised be the maker_ she thinks as she tries to put on a friendly face and adopt a warm sort of voice. 

”So, could I maybe be shown around the ship a little? If you're, or I, am allowed, that is” she asks, the irony of her thinking of the trooper as her pet earlier and now begging that same trooper to take her out for a walk not in the slightest bit lost on her.

”What would you like to see?” the metallic voice answers without hesitation, her boredom in being stationed outside a locked door for hours on end probably rivalling Rey's own. 

”Anything that's not the inside of this stupid room, or Kylo's stupid face...” Rey mutters in response, the trooper letting her head snap up in surprise and probably shock.

The raspy, metallic, and impersonal voice answers with only ”I did not hear that, please do not repeat it.”

"I can't make any promises!" Rey tries to give her voice a trilling, chirping edge. "But maybe you could help me fix this up into one piece again?"   
She grabs the broken parts of her quarter staff and looks up in the trooper's blank, black visor with as much hope she can muster up in this, seemingly hopeless, situation. 

"Sure, let's start with that." 

Once her staff is back in one piece, they just walk aimlessly around the ship. She's shown a mess hall, an assembly line for TIE's, huge hangars where Stormtroopers are drilled in combat as well as walking in formation. They walk for hours, Rey's sidekick silent but for explaining what they're looking at. Not until the rumbling from Rey's stomach is loud enough to be impossible to ignore, Rey herself dares to venture an suggestion on where to go.

”Is there maybe a kitchen somewhere around here? I haven't eaten since last night...”

The trooper stops abruptly, turns around so quickly that Rey almost collides with her. ”Of course, you need only ask.” And after a brief hesitation she says, in a smaller voice, ”Please don't tell the Supreme Leader I let you starve.”

Rey can only laugh in the masked face of the poor person behind the white plastic helmet. ”I think we all know he'd be happy to let me starve, so don't worry about it.”

The kitchen she's been brought to is not one of the many gigantic factory-like prep rooms where the low grade foodstuffs for the troopers (and hostages, it seems) is being prepared. This kitchen staff is made up exclusively of droids, humans deemed too much of a risk to deal with the higher ranking official's meals.   
This must be where Kylo's own meals are made. There is actually fresh produce! Rey feels like she's stepping in through the gates of heaven. But of course there's no silver lined cloud that doesn't also call for an umbrella in her sorry-ass life. A pristine and polished-to-the-brink-of-being-made-of-a-mirrored-surface droid steps up to Rey to bar her way.  
”This section is strictly off limits to all human personnel! Please state your name and rank so I can report your transgression to the appropriate channels!” The shrill voice reminds Rey of C-3PO, she immidiately dislikes it (and not only for it trying to come between her and what looks like a shuura fruit).

Her trooper fiend rats her out by suppling her name to the despised droid. ”This is Rey of the Resistance, check her clearance codes.”

And lo and behold, the beautifully gleaming and endearing droid angles its body to make room for Rey to enter the kitchen area while begging her forgiveness, because apparently she's to be ”granted access at any time, I'm so sorry for the confusion”.

Rey's eyes are as wide as the black goggles of the trooper helmet is oversized, and she can see her own rapture mirrored in them as she turns to look at her companion, who apparently wasn't such a tattle-tale after all. She regains control over her motor functions quickly enough and hurries inside and goes straight for the fruit she spotted earlier. 

She sinks her teeth down into the juicy and cream coloured flesh of the shuura, the taste even better than she ever could have imagined. It's not like she's been starving since joining the rebellion, but aside from the abundance of fish served to her at Ahch-to, she's basically only ever eaten those tasteless but nutritious portions that apparently taste just as bland in all the corners of the galaxy. Fruit and vegetables is a concept she's only ever read about. As she munches her way through red, orange, purple and green; sweet, sticky, tart and spicy; crisp, soft, mushy and chewy, her mind is a blissful blank. Aside from the droids helpful guidance, offering up names for the different enteties and warnings and redirections where needed, taste and texture is the only thing existing in her head.

Until, apparently, her delight leakes over into Kylo through the bond. She's been enjoying herself far too much to remember to keep the bond shut down. Now she's brought out of her perfect moment by a droll voice telling her _”You should probably slow down a bit. You're in for a world of belly aches as it is, keep eating and you'll most likely end up in the med bay, getting your stomach pumped.”_

Around a moutful of blumfruit she answers him without the need to open her mouth, _”Maybe that's why I'm doing it, hoping you'll be somewhere vomiting too.”_

 _”As soon as that happens I'm revoking your kitchen privileges. Along with your free pass to walk around the ship as you like.”_ His presence in her head recedes around the sentence, leaving her mind once more blissfully empty, save for the sweet taste of a galaxy's worth of different fruits. 

She heaves a sad sigh, looking down at the handful of berries in her hand before putting them back in the container she found them. Still her mouth is chewing through the blumfruit as she turns back to the trooper, nods and tries to make herself understood enough to be escorted back to her quarters. Before she reaches the doors she searches the helpful kitchen droid out, thanking it profusely for guiding her through her food frenzy. The droid manages to look both professional and affronted as her sticky, crimsoncoloured fingers leave smudges all over its arms. 

A short while later, when she's lying in her uncomfortable bed, hunched over in fetal position due to the cramps contorting her entire body, she does her best to share her agony over the bond. Apparently it works, as she can feel Ben, Ren, yeah yeah, writhing aswell, wherever he's at.  
_”Worth it”_ she manages to get through to him, making it obvious by her spiteful tone that she doesn't mean the sheer experience of new sensations, but rather him in pain.

 

She sulks all through the next day, but the one after that the whole ”alone, quiet and brooding”-thing has lost what little appeal it had to her, and she sits down to meditate to bring about a Force connection.

His thoughts appearing in her mind is all she gets, an annoyed _"yeah I'm busy at the moment"_ before he retracts from her mentally outstretched hand. 

She goes back to sulking.

A few hours passes before she feels the equivalent of a knock on her mind's entrance, before he speaks at her. _" Have you decided to behave?"_

Rey balks at the audacity of that statement but luckily manages to reign her initial response of ”no have you!” in, and in place offers a more diplomatic _"I've decided that I would like to be allowed back into your gym. With an added promise of keeping all destruction of property to a minimum."_

Her head remains quiet for a few heartbeats, still she can feel him inside, trying to feel her intent and sincerity, before he replies. _"Make that a promise of zero destruction of my property and I'll concider it."_

Unable to grind her teeth out of fear he'll sense it and deem her too volatile to be let back in, she settles for a deep and centering breath, followed by her genuine _"I promise, Supreme Leader."_ Realizing that her calling him that may sound a bit too taunting, she immidiately regrets it, but he seems to take it for genuine subordinance and leaves her with an ambigous grunt.

She doesn't have to wait many seconds trying to figure the meaning of said grunt out, before there's a knock on her door followed by the sidekicks ”You fancy a walk to the gym?”. She allows herself a small smile before grabbing her staff and bolting for the door.

 

The sidekick leaves her by the entry with a promise of waiting outside to walk her back, and this time Rey simply thanks her before she dissapears inside.

The room looks spotless, like she were never there, wreaking havoc. But there are several dummys placed around the large room now, something for her to spar against. And spar she does. She pushes herself as far as she can, without the aid of a sparring partner, but with no one to attack her back she can only concentrate on offence and no defence. In a while it gets a tad boring, not being given a challenge. She briefly entertains the idea of asking the trooper to join her, when she hears the door open. Thinking she must have somehow read her mind she turns towards the door with an unexpected smile, that quickly sours when she realizes it's Kylo who's barged in on her.  
Remembering, just in time to stop her from moaning in dissatisfaction, that she needs to make nice to not find herself going stir crazy in solitude once more, she arranges her face in a more neutral expression. 

Kylo stands still in the doorway for a few moments, seemingly unsure of how to proceed. _He must have known I was in here, right? But then why would he look like he didn't expect to see me in here?_ He looks a bit shook, almost, but then he turns to speak out the open door to tell the trooper that she may leave her duties for the night.

Rey would probably have thought that sounded a bit ominous, had she been given any time to mull it over. However, Kylo Ben _(?)_ closes the door, shrugs out of his outer layers as he strides over to her, saying in a loud and clear voice, ”You need a sparring partner.”

He comes to a stop a respectful four meters infront of her. Looking at her with that nerve wrecking intensity that always seems a bit unhinged to her.  
She wipes the sweat and sticky hair from her forehead and answers truthfully, ”Yes, I do. You offering?”

”Yes, I do” he answers in a voice that exactly mirrors her own. 

She twirls her staff around her in a figure eight, switching between hands. He, on the other hand, answers by lighting up his lightsaber. She freezes in her movements, yelling at his slowly advancing form ”Hey! This hardly seems fair!”

”No, it really doesn't, does it?” he answers with a sneer as he lunges at her. 

She has no time to argue, only to react. She forces herself to not strike at his blade, but rather at his hand, his arm, his torso. It's a completly different sort of duel than any she has ever engaged in, she can't rely on any of her previous knowledge of hand to hand combat or lightsaber battle. It's a challenge in a way she hasn't had to tackle in a long time. She finds she appreciates it.  
Right up until her poor staff, once again; gets severed in two, and she almost along with it. As she somersaults out of the way and to a safer distance, she shouts out ”NOW can I start trashing your stuff? I feel like I'm gonna need to in order to defend myself!”

Instead of answering her, Kylo reaches out with the Force, stretching his arm towards the bundle of black he left by the entrance. A saberhilt flies to his hand, he tosses it up in the air and before it has a chance to return to his palm, Rey has summoned it to her.  
It ignites blue and glorious and Rey isn't given even a second to revel in the feeling of holding a lightsaber once again, before Kylo bears down on her with a violent strike.

He had been restraining himself **a lot** she realizes as the fight now continues with a fervor and urgency she thought she had already seen the peak of. 

Minutes pass, Rey becomes increasingly winded, her movements sloppier by the second. ”When do we stop?” she shouts over the highpitched screeches of blade against blade. 

”At first blood” Kylo answers in a low and, quite frankly menacing, voice, before he charges anew.

Rey parries and deflects, trying to save as much of her strength as possible by not engaging or reciprocating. ”The blades cauterizes all wounds! There'll be no blood!”

She swears she sees the hint of a smile, tugging at a corner of his lips as he mutters ”I know”.

She tries her best to fight while preserving her energy, thinking that if she tires him out she'll eventually be able to muster up enough Force to take him by surprise and shove an elbow up in his face, drawing up that blood he seems to be craving.

But as she thinks this she can see a glint in his eyes, and understanding dawns on her an instant before he uses her plan against her, and shoves an elbow in her face, cracking both a lip and producing a copious amount of blood to spurt forth from her nose. In the same movement he extends his arm to catch the back of her head as it ricochets off of his elbow, bringing it in close to his. She barely has the wherewithal to register his whispered ”I win” before she passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should we get to hear from Kylo Ben's perspective as well? If Rey is the heroine of this story, then by giving away the inner workings of her antagonistic love interest, maybe that would be cheating?


	4. Meanwhile on the other side:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey isn't the only one who's confused. Someone is willing to give her a run for her money by challenging her for the title of "most confused person of the Outer Reaches".

He feels it just moments before it all ends. His mother reaching out to him, a final show of strength to tell him that she loves him.  
_”Please, son. I'm sorry. I've done you wrong, time and time again. It was my dearest hope that I would be given the opportunity to try and make some of it up to you, but my time has run out. Please, if you can hear me, know I never stopped loving you. My sweet moonchild, do you remember when I used to call you that? Do you remember the lullaby I used to sing to you?”_  
He doesn't answer. In no way does he give any indication that her prayer has been heard. After a few moments he can feel her ebb away in the Force, leaving a tiny pinprick of a hole in the tapestry that is his vision of the Living Force

He doesn't cry. He doesn't feel his heart clench, not even a tiny leap. _”There is no death, there is the Force”_ he was taught. Before Snoke, before the dark side. Now he knows: there most certainly is death. And it seems to cling to him wherever he turns, or if it is he who brings it about. He did remember the lullaby though, "those who have ceased to be are with you still" she used to sing to him. Like his uncle told him, "If you strike me down in anger, I will always be with you, just like your father." They both lied, what's dead is dead and can never come back. Deeds done can't be undone. That whole song was a lie she told him to get him to sleep so that she could be free from him for the night. There was never someone who he loved to keep him safe and warm as it said. He was left alone in the cold. And now he can finally leave them. His whole family has ceased to be, but they will never be "with him still". There might have been a time when he loved them and they loved him, but that time has long since passed. It's like it never happened in the first place. Now everyone that knew him before he became who he was meant to be, is gone. He is truly free of the past.  
There is no need for him to compose himself, only to take action. He has known this would happen and has a plan ready to be set into motion. As he opens the doors for the bridge far ahead of him, he reaches out to the redheaded nuisance, letting him know it is time. Time to send _the message_ to the scarce remains of the Resistance.

***

He had meditated on it, extensively. The visions granted him through those sessions have now come to pass, it seems. He sits in an intimidatingly huge audience chamber, awaiting her surrender. He can't help but wonder if she too has seen this future? Her being forced away from her friends, out of the light and in to the dark. Her being isolated and cut off from the only family she's ever known, and by that same familys choosing. He wonders if she'll be drawing parallels to what happened to her on Jakku some fifteen years ago. If she'll feel betrayed, abandoned. If this will tempt her to reconcider his proposal.  
And he wonders if he wants her to. If he'd let her.  
As she pushed that ridiculous excuse of a Captain out of the way to tell him she'd be coming for him, that's when his heart leaped unexpectedly. That was the first thing to touch him, to elicit some sort of physical response other than rage in him, for a long time. None of his visions showed him that.

Now, as he looks at her for the first time since Crait, he is suddenly struck with fear. Fear that his voice will somehow betray him, fail him. He remembers how it, time and time again, has behaved unexpectedly where she is concerned. He has heard it sound feeble, sentimental, weak and wavering. Pitched too high and pitched way, way too low. In her presence his voice have sounded scared, when nothing else ever could make it tremble. It has sounded breathless with longing to be touched, when nothing else ever has produced such raw emotions of want in him. Should any of those transgressions occur while he's in the company of his minions, he might never be able to strike fear into their hearts again. He can't risk it, his trecherous vocal chords leaving him no other option than to speak through his henchmen. It's a fair compromise, she might be more unnerved by his refusal to speak directly with her. He decides he likes it, that he would have done it no matter what, that this was his intent all along.  
He almost believes it.  
  
When everything eventually plays out just as foreseen, he allows himself to relax enough to be able to end the meeting, all by himself. If his exit seems somewhat hurried, he is confident that his subordinates will attribute it to him being done with fraternizing with the likes of the scum before him. Not that he's afraid he might crack a couple of his teeth if he stays so close to the person he risked everything for, only to have her, not just refuse him, but betray him on a deeper level than he thought possible. Her turning on him, after everything they went through, is something he thought he had stopped grinding his teeth over, but apparently not. He had just managed to forget just how profoundly her betrayal actually hurt him.  
But now he remembers. 

***

Even though the bond seemingly died with Snoke and there has been no physical or visual connections since Crait, he has, on occasions, been awash with feelings he doesn't know the source of. He has been in the middle of briefing Starfleet Commanders when an inexplicable and crushing wave of hurt has overcome him, clawing at the inside of his hollowed-out ribcage. He has woken in the middle of the night, confused by the feeling of a smile stretching over his features and the scowl of his brow smoothed out, when nothing has give him a reason to relax that much, ever. He has felt tears run down his cheeks for no apparent reason and sometimes, the most disconcerting thing of all, he has given orders he knows to be the right ones, and still felt sick doing it. He has commanded troops to obliterate inconsequential villages for their transgressions against the Order and felt regret. A sadness he can't for the life of him understand. 

He can't be sure, but he has suspected. He can't consciously feel her, feel any sort of link between them, but these feelings unrelated to his doings seem to have a familiarity to them. They leave a taste in his mouth, a pressure behind his eyes and a slight tingle in his right hand fingertips. Sometimes he has concidered severing that same hand from the rest of his body. A drastic measure, for sure, but if it could erase the tingling memory of skin-on-skin contact, it might be worth it. 

Having her this near again seems to have stirred something up. Maybe he has pushed destiny and the Force too far, but all his premonitions have told him that this is the course to be taken. He was supposed to bring her here. What was to happen after that hasn't been as clear. He assumed it would have something to do with the power he still believes he can derive from her. He might have thought it was for the benefit of removing her from the playingfield, from being used against him by the Resistance. A small part of him might even have hoped it was to bestow him some sort of vindication, to avenge her wrongdoings, make her hurt as she hurt him. In any case, he was sure he would know when the time came. 

But then he felt her. Almost as soon as the transmission where she told him she'd be coming had ended, he felt her. At first it was just agitation, easily mistaken for his own. Sadness, vexing him with its unwelcomeness. Love and gratitude, feelings he hardly could recognize for what they were, so he definitley knew they weren't his. Then the shuttle with her landed, he took a deep breath and her scent flooded him, and along with it her Force.  
Maybe this was what was supposed to happen, that the bond between them should open up again? Had he known that he wouldn't have brought her here. 

After the Battle of Crait he had been walking on eggshells for several days, expecting to turn a corner and find her waiting. Waiting with that last look, utterly devoid of any compassion for him. He dreaded it but he craved it, the opportunity to once again be in her presence. To talk to her, or to have her scream at him.  
When she didn't show, he tried to reach for her, to feel her like he once could feel his mother, his uncle. But she had remained lost to him. After a while he found it made things easier for him. He could function as expected of him. He was decisive, took action, made sure to keep close tabs on Hux and any other threats from within his own ranks. He was ruthlessly effective.  
And then, little by little, he started second guessing himself. Strange emotions overtook him, made him falter. Stopped him from being the person needed to lead. He became unbalanced. He knew of only one source that could bring that about.  
  
By bringing her to him, instigating closeness, comes more solid interference. Instead of the short bursts that took him by surprise, he can now feel her festering inside of him.  
Right now her presence in his mind brings with it an unwelcome serenity. He can feel her being in a deep, meditative state and against his wishes, he is somewhat impressed with her ability to remain calm.  
She has been aboard his ship for almost six standard hours now, and he thought she would be crawling out of her skin or at least be doing her best to try to escape. Not be sitting quietly and contently on the cold floor of one of his more habitable holding cells. It starts with the feeling, he closes his eyes to let it overcome him, thinking it will pass, but when he opens his eyes next she sits before him.

 _"How did you get in here?"_ He isn't ready for this. To hear her voice speaking to him like he's not her enemy; to hear her voice filled with venom and loathing directed at him; to any of it. He wants the connection to end but as he reaches out in the Force for a way out, while still managing to remain outwardly unfazed, she sends something his way. Her mind nudges against his and he can't resist it, he opens himself up to her, just the tiniest bit. The memory that bursts into existence in his mind is not his, but it can't be hers either. Because he is in it, doing something he never has done.  
Accompanying the images of his head, his face, buried between her legs, is an intense feeling of shame and mortification, and the instant before he shuts it out, a flicker of overwhelming lust.  
He is frozen for less than a second before he can collect himself.  
Is this how she's gonna play it? Does she really think she can tempt him with lewd pictures of the two of them? Does she really believe that's what he wants to see, that he's a creature driven by carnal desires that can be swayed and played with?  
He resents her for thinking so little of him, he resents her for stooping so low as to become pathetic, he resents her for trying to trick him.  
He won't let it show. He won't give her any indication that she managed to send him those fabricated memories.  
Instead he tries his best to sound polite, sincere. Like a gracious host that doesn't want to test the bonds physical properties by ripping out her treacherous throat.  
  
When he finally manages to break it, it doesn't feel like a victory, it feels like a declaration of war. And to further incinerate him, she doesn't dissapear completly. Still in the back of his head he can feel her. Bursts of emotions, like how he got alien feelings shoved on him before, but now it's constant. She stays with him, all through his daily tasks. The menial and mundane made even less bearable due to him not being left well alone in his own kriffing head. It's a splinter in his eye, a constant source of vexation, that she forces contradictory feelings on him, making him unsure in every decision he makes, every thought that crosses his mind. Where he wants to succumb to passion and anger, she is calmness and patience. When he manages to get a moment of quiet solitude, she is exuberant giddyness. Their feelings never align, making the conflict he once felt seem like a trifle in comparison to this new torment of not getting to feel what he feels.  
  
While in a meeting where he is trying to remain rational and sensible, she forces on him a raging fire and a ferociousness to rival his own. Had he been alone he would have drawn his saber and let the fury course through him, but as he isn't, he tries to get her to tamper it down. It doesn't really work, but it does remind him that he needs to see to it that she's given food. He wonders if he would have remembered it on his own eventually or if he has stopped thinking of her as a human being all together. The embodiment of all his failings sent in to his life to torment him can't have need for human sustenance, right?

All his theories of her feeble machinations are proven right later that night. He hasn't gone to sleep yet, he rarely gets more than a few hours sleep per day cycle, but she apparently has no problem with the restlessness that plagues him. The flashes from her sleeping mind start out with mostly colour and sound forced into his mind's eye. They are rapidly melting together to a stream of movements and humid heat, the heady feeling of slick skin against slick skin.  
  
That she can compel herself to dream specific things, that doesn't originate from memory, and then force these upon him through their bond whilst asleep is impressive, but not unheard of. That she has managed to learn how to share dreams with others is surprising, it's not really something that's on the first years of Jedi Studies curriculum.  
  
He tries to hold on to that clinical and academic point of view of her latest endeavour to confuse and weaken him, but when he sees her face, contorted in rapture and hears his old name moaned from her swollen and saliva-wet lips, as she grips his hair with all the strength she has and forces his head up so that he can see the eyes of his dream-self and how they look to be filled with love and adoration and then hear a voice that sounds deceptively like his own grunt out her name mixed with a row of expletives, he can't take it and throws up his mental shields. He refuses to fall for it, if his groin grows unbearably hot, his pants constrictingly tight and his head fuzzy with the loss of blood, so be it. He will NOT start pawing at himself like a senseless libertine.  
He will never fall for her lies again.

***

He decides to meet her despicable attempts to overthrow him by rising above it. He pretends that she either didn't succeed in sending him anything through the bond, or that he's unaffected by it, if she did. And he is, unaffected, that is. She can't get a rise out of him, in any sort of way. He'll make sure of it.

She leaves him waiting for her. Another one of her misplaced displays of powerstruggle, most certainly. He _had_ thought of inviting her in for conversation, to show her how not affected he is by her presence, but her refusing to comply with his simple request to just Show The Kriff Up When Asked To negates all willingness from his side to pretend to be civilized. Besides, when she finally deigns to heed his summons, he's in no position to take time for her anyways. She tries to challenge him, and he can't reign his temper in before he acts on it and makes a fool of himself. He never was any good at thinking before acting or trying to temper his violent streak. It has served him well, but sometimes he fears he might come across as petty. 

He does his best to block her out, but when he, hours later, feel a trickle of contentment and a pleasure that seems indecent enough to be of sexual origin, he can't help but open up a bit. If she is trying to fool him into thinking she is a human female of flesh and blood with human instincts and desires that can be somehow swayed in his directions, wouldn't it be better he knows of her every attempt at it?  
  
His surprise at what he finds on her end is quickly replaced by exasperation. And then trepidation, will he be able to feel the outcome of her actions? In his youth he had sometimes been ravenous after long trainingsessions and heeded no warnings, and instead overindulged himself on fruits and vegetables and whatever else was in reach. He is more than familiar with the aches that comes after. She could probably push any and all anguish on him, if only she applied herself. And he has no doubt she is just as petty as he can be.  
When he tries to persuade her to slow down, she proves him right by being petty. And then, later on, he can feel his stomach contort through no small exertion of her powers. She is willingly submitting herself to more pain just to make sure he feels it too. Petty.

To prove to her, and himself, that he actually is better than her, he pretends like her behaviour with the fruits and her dream-projection didn't bother him. He won't be caught in a neverending battle of snide remarks and small jibes between the two of them. He can be the bigger person. Considering she's barely a person at all that shouldn't be too hard.

So when she once again reaches out to him with a request, he is the very embodiment of patience. Of leniency. The face of hospitality. She'll be the one to fall for his lies, this time.

He can feel her growing frustration at not being able to get the release she apparently craves. She must have thought that physical labour was all she needed, but has now come to realize that she needs to challenge her mind as well. You can't hone your insticts by sparring against dummies, after all. And considering he has decided to take on the part of the gracious host that just want his guest to be content, why shouldn't he join her?  
He even goes through the trouble of digging up his first lightsaber. The one he built while still on Yavin IV. The one he hasn't used since he got a new one, that felt more right to him than the old one ever could, no matter how much his uncle hoped it would suit him. But his blade was always meant to bleed.  
  
As he steps through the door to the gym, he realizes he's made a mistake. Her red and sweat-shiny face is lit up by a radiant smile as she turns to him, and in the second it takes for her to lose the smile, he is thrown back into the dream she forced upon him. Had she said his name then, he probably would have gotten the release he denied himself last night, then and there.  
He wonders if she knew he'd make that comparison? Was that why she lured him here with a faked sense of frustration, making him believe she needed a sparring partner? Only so he could look upon her face and be reminded of a dream she pretended to have, and be shaken down to his very core? She must think him the weakest of creatures. He grinds his teeth together and keeps the mask in place, the accomodating host-mask.  
If he offers what she pretended to seek, and she thinks how he chooses to accomodate her wishes isn't all fair, so be it. And if he goes the extra mile and offers her something she didn't even know was possible for her to ask for, why should she suspect he's doing it out of anything other than a gesture of good will? But he has no will that isn't ill-intended where she is concerned. And she needs to be shown he's not to be trifled with, by any means necessary. 

She'll never get the better of him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song referenced in the beginning is of course 'mirrorbright', from Claudia Gray's excellent novel Bloodline.  
> I don't know if Ben ever had a pet name, but I would hope so. Leia calling him 'her sweet moonchild' is pretty heartbreaking, no?
> 
> Also, in my mind kylo ben is totally unaware of how emationally unstable he is, that's why he thinks Rey is the sole person to ever affect his voice. (He doesn't know everyone calls him crylo ren behind his back.)
> 
> And I don't know if I have made it clear enough, but when he (or maybe both of them?) think they feel the others influence, they're really not. Kylo is just starting to realize, even if only subconciously, that thoughtless slaughter is wrong, but as he has no frame of reference for these feelings, he chooses to attribute them to Rey and their bond.


	5. NCM-6685

She can't have been unconcious for more than a couple of seconds, waking up as she's being lowered down on the padded floor by a surprisingly gently Supreme Leader. For once his face betrays nothing of what's going on inside of him, his features as unyielding as chiseled stone. Rey can feel the blood running back down her nose and clogging up her throat. Before she can gag on it she turns her head away from Kylo to spit out a mouthful on the mat beside her.  
”Sorry for making a mess of your rooms again” she manages to croak out, the bite unfortunately lacking due to her subdued state.

”I think a sincere _thank you_ from me is in order, for you not spitting that in my face, so no worries” he mutters as he removes his gloves while settling himself down on his knees beside her head. 

Rey drags a binding-covered arm over her face, wincing from the pain of contact to her beaten-up features, smearing the blood out and making her seem even more of a mess. She can see how Kylo's eyes twitch before her view of him is obstructed by his naked hands, palms hovering over her face.  
”What's this? What are you doing?” She can't help the slight panicky tingle from creeping up in her voice.

”Be quiet” is all he says before a sense of warmth, tranquility, seems to emanate from his outstretched hands. 

Rey can't know if the surprised gasp she exhales is from the fact that she once again can breathe through her nose, or if it's due to the fact that a faint glow seems to accompany the warmth from Kylo's hands.  
It's over in under a minute, and now when she reaches up to touch her face it is without the accompaniment of tenderness she can touch both lips and nose.

”I didn't know you could do that” she says, voice quieted by awe.

Kylo grunts as he rises to his feet. ”Because I'm a darkside user? Whatever Luke may have told you, rest assured he withheld even more. He was always terrified of the power of the dark.”

Behind his back Rey allows herself the luxury of rolling her eyes in exasperated annoyance with his constant need to defend himself whilst tearing others down.  
”No, Kylo, Ben, whatever I should call you, because I never knew you could heal physical damage through the Force.”  
And then she adds, under her breath, more of a muttering to herself really, ”...and you can rest assured that Master Skywalker didn't tell me nearly enough of _anything_ I ought to have known of the ways of the Force...”

Kylo kind of freezes, or falters in his movements, before asking her ”Did you not train with him? I thought he was your master, and you his padawan?” He is half turned towards her, half turned away. When Rey looks up at him she sees his profile, his eyes downcast, his back slightly hunched. Like he feels he's too tall, too big.

”No. Or, in a way. Or no, not really. I didn't find what I thought I would find. The island you saw in my head, that first time? Back at Starkiller Base? When I came there and realized it was the same place I'd always dreamt of, I thought I would finally get the answers I needed... But you know how that went. And even before that, from the moment I met Luke, he just wanted me to leave. He didn't want to train me or anyone else, ever again. He said the Jedi needed to die.”  
As Rey talks, Kylo stands like frozen in carbonite. Immobile but intently focused on what she's telling him. When he doesn't move or even indicates that he wants her to continue, she does so anyway. It looks as if he can't compel himself to move because he's afraid he'll miss something if he does.  
  
”After several days of me just following him around the island, where he did a variety of unsettling things, and me sleeping on a stone bench just outside his hut, in the rain, he finally caved. He agreed to teach me, but only three lessons. And he said that when he was done, I'd know why the Jedi had to end.”

Kylo's head tilts slightly more to her side, it seems he barely breathes, he's that still. When he speaks his voice barely breaks the silence. ”What where the lessons?”

Rey isn't sure why he's reacting like this, like he's filled with fear of what she might have been taught by his former master. She would have thought it obvious that she hasn't been told anything useful about how to wield the Force.  
”The first was that the Force isn't for the jedi or the sith. It's a balance that exists regardless of the forceusers. To try and harness the power would always be intrinsically bad. And then he freaked out about how I didn't only see the light side, but also the dark. And how he wished he'd been as afraid of you as he was of me... Or something like that.”  
She hasn't told anyone about what transpired at that sacred island, how Master Skywalker was frightened of her and the power she held. Still holds. She shakes the feelings of unease by barging on.  
  
”The second lesson was that the jedi succumbed to their own hubris, I think? That by calling yourself a jedi, you adopted a way of thinking of yourself and the Force and the other lifeforms around you, that will always and undoubtedly lead to the jedis downfall? Seriously, I'm not sure even he knew what he was talking about. He had been alone for a really long time you know... And the third lesson was that the jedi way was the way of inaction, not interfering with the things happening around you, unless you were sure your actions would be more beneficial than your inactions. I guess that was what he thought he was doing, removing himself from the equation, assuring that he couldn't do something to upset the natural order of things. Stars, I don't know! His most prominent lesson was that I was alone and powerless.”  
  
It's the longest she has spoken to him. It's the longest she has spoken ever, she suspects. Her throat is still clogged and slimy from the blood, the salt-sweet taste in her mouth making her slightly nauseous. But she still has something more she wants, needs, to tell him.  
She looks back to his face, still as frozen solid, not betraying any reactions. She tries to will him to turn his head, to look at her. She wants him to understand how much she means this next thing she's about to tell him. How true and important it is.  
  
”But you taught me the opposite, Ben. You were the one that showed me the ways of the Force, that I wasn't alone, that I had power. That I could belong somewhere, in and with the Force. You were more of a teacher to me than he ever was.”

He finally turns his head enough to look at her, from over his shoulder. She almost shivers with tension, did she say too much? It feels like she has opened up her chest in front of his condemning eyes. The silence that stretches between them echoes both in the grand room and through their invisible bond. It's a silence that lasts a lifetime, a lifetime of doubt and regret.  
  
Then he turns and leaves, without a word.   
  
Her eyes sting, a searing hurt that can't be reined in. As the door closes behind him, she is reminded of searing sunlight, endless stretches of sand dunes and a ship racing across the sky, forever leaving her behind. History repeats itself, over and over, and never does she seem to learn her lesson. To not depend on others, to rely on no one but herself. The silence in the room would be all-consumimg and suffocating, were it not for the splatter of her tears on the mat. 

***

That night she dreams again.  
In the weeks following the Battle of Crait, he was more absent than ever from her, in her. She might have thought him dead, had not Leia insisted on her knowing if that had happened. She was on high alert though, expecting him to show in every dark shadow, every swish of fabric she saw. When he didn't, she almost felt abandoned. Had he found a way to sever their tie, or was it because of her? It's not like she missed him, but she had gotten used to it, to have something like a constant, quiet companion, making her feel less alone. When he dissapeared he left yet another hole in her. 

And then she started to have moodswings. She could be doing one thing, but react to something completely different. Sometimes when asked questions she would give answers unrelated, or in a tone way out of character for her. Sometimes it felt like she took on traits of his persona, sometimes it was as if he was there, in the back of her head, offering up alternative things to say, respond, react and do. She tried to reach out to him, but he remained lost, ureachable. And then the dreams started.  
  
At first she dreamt she just saw him; that shadow, that swish of fabric, it was him. Sometimes looking at her, sometimes walking away from her, who was never able to catch up to him. After that she dreamt that the bond flared up once again. Dreams she woke up from, convinced they had been real. Since she never could remember what had been said, she concluded that dreams they must have been.  
But she remembered the feeling. Of something lost to her returned. Of _someone_ who had left her, that had chosen to come back. The feeling of _not alone_.  
  
It went downhill from there. The warm feeling of companionship and ”not alone” morphed into longing for him, and that in turn morphed into want. Lust. And in her dreams he answered her prayers, with want and lust for her.   
  
Some nights he was oh so careful, making sure she felt safe and loved and that she, more than anything, wanted him to be her first, her last.   
Kissing her everywhere, touching and caressing and teasing til she begged him to take her, claim her for his own.  
  
Other nights, in other dreams, she was ravenous, feasting on his body like a woman starved. Biting and licking and sucking at his every muscle, every patch of skin. Dominating him and showing him exactly how and where she wanted him. She had her way with him and he looked at her with awe and adoration and when she finally would let him come, her name was forced from his throat like a truth wrenched free.   
  
She wondered whether he shared her dreams, if he was there with her? The thought turned her on, and when she touched herself at night she felt for him around her, trying to will him into existence. It never worked and she always felt lonelier afterwards. 

When his bluetinted face assaulted her eyes back on the base that day, she hardly recognized him. He didn't look like the dream-Ben she had spent almost every night with, instead he looked like a menacing Supreme Leader. Like Kylo Ren in all his kriffing glory.   
  
The Kylo she and Finn were brought to was yet another version. Still not dream-Ben but not quite the one from the holo either. He looked... tired. Not just ”bags-under-the-eyes-and-grey-skin”-tired, but a marrow-deep kind of tired.   
He looked like someone who was tired of life and every other being in his galaxy. Like someone who spent his days screaming at others' incompetence while only doing things he hated, and his nights grinding his teeth down to the gum.

This night, that's the Kylo that visits her. The utterly exhausted and done with life-version of him. In her dream, he takes her hands in his, dwarfing them in huge, hardened and calloused hands, guiding hers up to his face. Her palms an inch from his temples, he shows her how to use that same healing power he used on her. She can feel as her lifeforce seeps from her core, out through her hands and is swallowed up by him, soaking his Force-signature in hers. In the dream she looks at the two of them, as dream-Rey is slowly shrinking, wilting before her eyes, while dream-Kylo is filling out, his skin taking on a rosey hue, his lips growing darker and his cheeks fuller. Before dream-Rey is completely depleted, dream-Kylo lifts her hands away from his temples and moves them down to his lips. He kisses her palms and as he nuzzles his face in them, he looks her dream-self in the eyes, telling her 'thank you' without using his voice. 

As she wakes from the dream, she instantly reaches for her face. Making sure she still has flesh covering her bones, not just taut skin stretching over her cheeks. She feels just as soft and full as she's felt ever since she left Jakku. The chronometer she asked for is standing on her bedside table, telling her it is still a long way to go before it's time to get up. As she tries to fall back to sleep, she tries to remember if Kylo had looked any different after healing her broken nose. Was that the price he had payed? Had he taken from his lifeforce and fed it into her? Does she now have a part of him inside of her?  
  
”...Kylo?” she tentatively reaches out. Should he have left part of himself in her, she should be able to feel him even more keenly now, she thinks.  
But she's met by the empty void that usually indicates a conciously drawn up wall between them.

The next day is spent in silence. Her trooper sidekick is exchanged for someone that's not very vocal and refuses to be engaged into any sort of communication with her. He takes her to the gym, waits silently outside and then takes her back to her room. ”Yes”, ”no” and ”food” the only words she hears all day. She doesn't even try to reach for Kylo, _because I don't need him and he knows very kriffing well where to find me_ she tells herself. The tiny fear that she would once again be met by The Wall of Silence and know he's keeping her locked out from their bond not having anything to do with her refusal to try. She convinces herself that's the truth.

***

The next day ”her” trooper is back on duty. As she knocks on Rey's door, announcing the arrival of her breakfast, Rey asks her to join her in sharing the meal.  
”I'm sorry, maam, I'm not allowed to remove my helmet.” Her answer is staccato and devoid of human emotions. But two seconds later she follows that up with a more normal-sounding ”But I appreciate the sentiment.”

”You could still keep me company? Even if you're not allowed to eat with me?” Rey is more starved for company than for breakfast at this point. And she thinks that if she could find an ally, if not a friend, her being stationed here will be a little less daunting. After a moment of hesitation the trooper agrees, and follows her up to the lone table, with the lone chair next to it. ”Hmm, I obviously didn't think this through...” Rey starts as she looks at her furnishings, clearly not meant for entertaining guests. 

”It's alright, I can stand” the trooper says, whilst standing ramrod straight next to the table, making Rey feel as if her meal is being supervised. Not the companionable hang she had envisioned. 

”No, don't be silly, I'll just...” Rey looks around, then uses the Force to drag her bed up to the table and sits herself down on the edge of it, motioning the trooper to the chair.  
”There we go! Problem solved!”

The Stormtrooper helmet looks as blank as ever, but from underneath it an impressed ”huh” can be heard. Out loud she says ”Thank you” as she sits herself down on the chair to Rey's left.

”Oooh, this looks delicious!” Rey exclaims in mock exaltation, infront of the gray gruellike porridge. She poors herself a cup of the strong and bitter caf, continuing her endeavor of making small talk by noting that ”Had we a straw, you could also reap the benefit of me being given exquisite prison-grade caf without having to remove your helmet.” The amused snort from under the helmet quite unmistakable.

”Thanks. But I'm pretty sure we Stormtroopers get to enjoy the same brand of tauntaun-piss they try to pass off as caf on this ship.” 

The metallic voice sound less robotic when tinted with amusement. It makes Rey relax somewhat. ”So... Do you have a name I might call you?” she asks hesitantly, afraid this might be where the line is definitely drawn. The slight pause from the trooper doing nothing to relax her.

”My designation is NCM-6685.” A slight pause, then ”The First Order isn't too fond of personal names.”

”Well then, let's come up with something better, shall we? My name is Rey, I'm not sure who gave it to me but I like it! NCM, how about... Nancy? Ciam? Or maybe Whitey! Because of, you know, all the white?” She motions in the general direction of the blindingly white uniform, mouth drawn up in a smile, despite of it being full of the rather disgusting porrige.   
NCM-6685 actually laughs with her then, the voice modulator in the helmet obviously not meant for such highpitched sounds, causing it to feedback a litte, making the sound of laughter rather disconserting.

”I like Ciam, thank you.” The smile evident in her voice taking some of the uneasiness of the droid-esque laugh that still rings in the small room, away.

"Then, might I say, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ciam!" Rey says around a smile that can't even be burned away by the acrid caf. 

After breakfast they walk the ship. Rey's fondness for scavenging not being diminished in the slightest by this being a fully operational ship, on the contrary. She catalogues all the information that might one day come in handy. Like where all the highest-grossing, in terms of portions, parts are hidden away. Some day even ships like this will end up broken down on some remote planet, rusting away and only useful to people like her. People who knows how to build something new and useful out of discarded debris. 

After lunch Rey muster up the courage to ask Ciam if she would be allowed, and willing, to spar with her. When she says 'yes' the relief flooding through Rey is welcome at first, but is disconcertingly quickly followed by a sense of mean-spirited pleasure in not having to ask Kylo for any sort of help, but being able to make due without him. Had she truly been doing just fine without his aid she hadn't felt the need to rub it in his face, she suspects.

Ciam favours a two-handed vibro ax, and even though Rey repeatedly asks her to not hold back, she still does. Rey in her lighter clothing and unobstructed view has the upperhand by lightyears. She's still thankful though, realizing Ciam must have stayed with Rey longer than her shift when a new buckethead marches in to "relieve her of her duties". 

"Sorry for denting your armour!" Rey yells at her back as she walks for the exit. Her gait seems somewhat laboured, but she raises a hand in a "don't worry about it"-like gesture.

***

As she goes to sleep that night, not having had any contact with her captor for two full days, she finds she would rather take his cold and stand off-ish conversational skills than his continued silence. It's not a comforting realization to keep her company as she waits for sleep to claim her.

That night she dreams of being woken by strong hands running up her legs, gripping her thighs and coaxing them open. She dreams of the full weight of Kylo Ren covering her body, his hips settling against her opened and welcoming thighs, grinding his hardness relentlessly against her dampended core, whilst his hands roam over her breasts, her arms, her throat.   
She dreams of thick and velvety hair between her fingers and a warm, wet tongue against her own. She dreams of hearing her name like he said it in the elevator, before he killed Snoke for her, back when she still thought he could leave with her. For her.

She wakes with her hand sliding in the wetness of the swollen flesh between her thighs, her fingers massaging and teasing the most sensitive part of her. When she climaxes, it's his birthname she moans, and when she falls back asleep she's once again back in his arms, taking and giving pleasure in a never ending cycle of completion.

The next morning brings nothing but exhaustion and loneliness with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to keep track of what I've written? I'm afraid I've set myself up for a lot of inconsistency and plotholes. Feel free to remind me if I say something that contradicts earlier parts of the story! Fun story, NCM was chosen as her designation because I thought it could stand for "Non-Combatant Maintenance/Misc." but then I wanted her to spar with Rey and then I realized, why ever would the First Order dress people in stormtrooper suits if they can't fight? And then put one on guard duty with their jedi fighter-skilled prisoner? And that's in the same chapter! So, things further back is like a big, black void in my mind.


	6. Asking stupid questions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey really tries her best and then has a brilliant idea.

Rey realizes it's been over a standard week since she last heard anything about what's happening with her friends in the disbanded resistance.  
When the arrival of her breakfast is announced by an anonymous troooper, she asks to be taken to the Supreme Leader once she's finished eating. The trooper doesn't even acknowledge her wish, but once she's eaten, showered, clothed in her regular attire (that actually is taken away to be washed over night if she leaves it in a special compartment in the wall, she has found out), she steps outside and the trooper starts off in the opposite direction of the gym.

They walk for a long time, take lifts both up, down and sideways, before arriving infront of a set of doors that are more normal-sized than the last rooms she's been taken to to see Kylo.  
Apparently the trooper did call ahead to make sure Kylo would be in the mood to see her, because when he knocks on the door, they swing open of their own accord and Rey is motioned inside, while the trooper remains on the outside. 

Is this his office? It's well lit, with a huge desk filled with holoscreens, blueprints, maps and stars knows what else. It's surprisingly disorganized, and at the long end on the opposite side of the table sits Kylo, looking about as fit as he had looked in the dream last night, before she healed him.  
Rey feels a pang of guilt, but then she remembers why he had to heal her in the first place, and she's able to steel herself.

”Supreme Leader. I would very much like to be briefed on the situation and whereabouts of the members of the former resistance.”   
When he only looks at her with dull eyes and his chin resting heavily in his hand, she can't be bothered with trying to keep up the pretence of her having any sort of pride left. She hasn't, not when her friends and family is concerned, at least. ”Ben please, I just want to know how they're all doing.”

He sighs heavily before drawing a holopad that's been buried under paperwork to him. As he starts to search through the intel on the pad, Rey dares to move closer to the table.  
”There has been development. However, I'm not sure if it's something you'll want to hear.”

Rey's heart stops in her chest, she can feel her throat constrict and her vision starts to darken around the edges. Have they done something that Kylo has deemed 'rebellious' enough to warrant some sort of retaliation? Are her friends even still alive? If he tells her he's had any one of them executed, she don't know how she'll react, but it won't be pretty. She can feel her lower lip starting to tremble.

”We have observed your _friend_ Finn, taking up house with the woman known as... Rose, yes that's it. They seem very, familiar, with each other.” He looks up at her from his seated position, with a face that looks like what he's saying is tantamount to an admission of Finn suffering death by torture. 

Rey is confused for a few moments, until she manages to center herself enough to be able to get a read on Kylo's feelings.   
He thinks this is bad news for her. He thinks she'll be heartbroken that Finn has decided to start living his life with someone other than her.   
  
The relief that explodes in her from them not being dead comes out in a burst of snorting laughter, extremely undignified. She doesn't care. She hasn't felt this lighthearted in kriffing _years_. 

Kylo sits quietly and waits for her mirth to subside. His face a mask of carefully constructed indifference. Once she has drawn her final snort and managed to reign in the relief-fulled laugh attack, Kylo continues. ”It seems I might have miscalculated the relationship between yourself and FN 2187. In any case, they have settled in this quadrant of the Outer Rim here, on the planet Bith, with a few others, Liutenant Connix among them. As of now, the only people not having taken up residence in a fixed location is the pilots Dameron, Wexley and Pava. The three of them remains concidered a threat due to this uncertain status, but it seems as though they have taken up some sort of supervising role, travelling between the different settlements to ensure everyone is settling in well. Once we have a lock down on them aswell, I imagine we can start discussions of where to put you.”

It's like a small piece of the weight on Rey's shoulders have been lifted. Betrayed and sold out as she might have felt, she still wishes nothing but the best for her former colleagues. To hear that they, seemingly, have done their best to return to a semblance of 'normalcy', whatever that means, is good news indeed. That Poe is keeping tabs on everyone and ensuring everything runs smoothly is something Leia would have wanted. Even if he by doing so delays her own return, she can't fault him for it. Quite the contrary.  
So it is with a feeling of sincerity she can say ”Thank you, Ben.”  
But then that last thing he said sinks in... _"we can start discussions of where to put you"_..? Does he mean she won't be free to go where she pleases?  
  
The 'he' in question has resumed his perusal of the documents infront of him and no longer acknowledges her presence.  
”Hey! Wait a minute, Ben! Do you mean to tell me” but before she can finish her sentence he rises, unfolding in front of her like a huge black bat, his mantle rippling dramatically around him.

”Do not call me that.” His jaws flexing and his fists clenching, making the leather of his gloves creak. ”It _means_ that we can start discussions of where you are to go. You _will_ be kept tabs on, just as the rest of your... associates. These were the agreed upon terms, if you remember.”

Kriff, she does remember. ”But you won't be deciding for me? Where I am to go? If I want to go to Bith to be with Finn and Rose, I'll be allowed to, wont I?” She hates her voice, how it sounds right now. She's reminded of a tiny girl of four or five, begging her parents to come back for her, to not be left alone. She hates that she has been reduced to begging infront of him, she hates him for forcing this feeling of helplessness on her. 

Kylo looks at her with an uncharacteristically blank face. He sits himself down again, at the same time pulling up a chair for her via the Force, indicating that she should sit.  
”I can't imagine that anyone would oppose that. Were it only up to me you'd be on your merry way there as we speak. But the situation being as it is...” He trails off, almost like he dares her to ask him what the situation is like.  
So he can explode in her face once again? So he can come up with excuses, about how none of this is really his fault? She neither knows nor cares, she's more than happy with the vague promise of her probably being allowed to go live with Finn once this is over. But on the other hand, as long as there is a First Order, it's not likely to ever be 'over', is it?

”Can I ask you, what is your plan? Your end game?” She tries to sound as non-accusing as she possibly can, hoping it will keep the conversation going for as long as possible. And maybe it's his muteness, maybe it's the quizzical look he gives her, or maybe it's just that she finally is ready to admit to herself that this is a question she really, really, wants the answer to, but she just blurts it out, watching in horror as the words hang in the silence betweeen them. ”What would have happened if I had said yes, if I had joined you?”

It takes him a few seconds before he answers, seconds as long as a lifetime, but when it comes, it's something thought through. Every word is weighed before it's uttered.  
”Had you said yes, we would have figured out the end game together. I wouldn't have to listen to the advise of the likes of Hux, or the other incompetent, power hungry zealots I'm surronded with. Together we could have made a new counsel, our own order. We would have ended the war.”

It seems to take a lot of effort for him to keep eye contact with her, about as much as it takes for her, she guesses. His intensity and discomfort in locking their eyes is making her want to squirm in her chair. She doesn't, though. She want's to answer him with a sincerity to match his own.  
”Would you have stopped the attack on the resistance if I had said yes?”

”If you had meant your yes, then of course I would.”

His words sound so true that her soul aches. She could have saved so many lives, had she not been so caught up in the notion of light versus dark. Since Luke's death she has read a lot of the Jedi texts she (not stole, scavenged!) from Ahch-to. From them she has learned that everything needn't be as separate as she thought, back then. The Light, the Dark, they are both parts of a whole, dependant on each other. Not to counter-act, not to balance, but as one and the same. Unseparable. 

”And if I wanted to now, join you, what would that mean?” Her voice is so soft, so full of fear. Fear that she's making the wrong decision, that she has mis-read the situation, mis-read him. 

He's not quiet long enough this time. Instead he answers, whilst standing up and using the Force to open the doors. ”I guess we'll never know. I have things to attend to, please.” He motions towards the door, making it clear this conversation is over. Rey is emotionally exhausted, and can do nothing but shuffle out of the chair and towards the door.

Outside the trooper awaits, asking her ”Where to?”.

”Back to my rooms, please” she answers without noticing.

***

Later in the evening Ciam is back on duty, and Rey has had the thrilling idea of asking if there is a library on the ship. There is, but judging by the level of discomfort in Ciam's posture, she doubts it's one open to the general populace. 

”I regret to inform you that this is something that's out of my ability to help you with. The collection of writings and holocrons on the ship is heavily guarded and none other than the Supreme Leader himself has access to it.” 

”Kriff” Rey mutters, thinking on how she has apparently managed to once again piss Kylo off, and in the process making her stay with him all the more miserable. _Why can't I just play nice?_ But on the other hand, he most certainly refuses to 'play nice' so of course she couldn't. That would indicate her being weak, would it not? 

”Kriff indeed.” Ciam leaves her with this affirmation and a tray of uninspiring nutrients.

Once Rey has finished her dinner, she has also decided on trying to reach out to Kylo, begging if she need to, to let her access the library. _Pride is for cowards_ she decides, and sits herself down in meditation pose, searching for the thread that binds her to him, and once she feels she has a firm grasp on it, she gently tugs. It's like a 'knock, knock, knock' at the door of his mind, and she hopes this show of respect for his privacy will be well recieved. 

 

She can feel him on the other side, he knows she's there, but still it takes several long seconds before he answers her nudges. It's with a weary and guarded _”Yes?”_ he finally opens the bond up, enough for their thoughts to be transmitted, but nothing more. 

_”Heyyy, Kylo... So, I hear there's a library of sorts here? And you know me, always curious, I was wondering if maybe I could be allowed a visit?”_ She's not sure if the flashes of the torn up gym is supplied by her own unhelpful brain or his, but she's quick to add _”And I'll be careful! I'd never harm books, never!”_

He's there, but at the same time not. The bond is just attaching the two of them as little as possible, leaving him locked away from her. She feels strangely bereft. 

_”Come see me tomorrow afternoon, we can talk about it further then. I need to go now.”_  
And the severing of their connection is instantaneous and harsh. She hates that she feels slighted, that she had hoped for something more of a conversation between them. She never should have asked him about joining him now, she doesn't even want that! He probably knows that, so why should they entertain thoughts of what could never be? That's ridiculous, she's ridiculous. And she has apparently been alone for too long, if she's concidering Kylo Ben to be a better companion than solitude. 

_I used to be good at this! To be left to my own devices, to fend for myself to not speak to others for days on end! The resistance has made me soft. Having connections with others have weakend me. Letting myself depend on Finn, Chewie, the others, it was foolish. Everyone will leave you in the end, everyone will betray..._ But she suddenly realizes what she's doing, that she's letting the sentiments of Kylo fricking can't-decide-on-a-name Ren, influence her mind! No, her love for others is what has made her endure. More than that, it's what has made her flourish.  
_And that's that._ she decides, crawling down under her sheets, determined to not dream of any tall, dark and brooding leaders that might or might not awaken a dormant sexuality she thought would never spring to life in her, but failing magnificently.

***

It's an hour before the alarm for breakfast will sound that she awakens by climaxing, the dream still vivid in her mind's eye. She can actually feel the preassure of large hands on her throat, forcing her head backwards, and the huff of breath on the shell of her ear. The hand in her underwear that's still rubbing her swollen and aching sex doesn't quite feel like her own and the back of her is way too hot concidering she's uncovered by the blanket and naked. As she rides the orgasm out, the other sensations ebb away aswell. It's a while before she's lucid enough to recognize the tiniest tug on the string between her mind and his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there people out there, reading this? What do you think of my characterization of Rey and Kylo? Is there things I should think about, am I missing pivotal parts of them or do I do them injustice in any way? Would dearly love feedback!


	7. Time after time

He doesn't regret it as he shoves his elbow up in her delicate face.  
He doesn't regret it as he hears the cartilage in her nose crunch at impact.  
He doesn't regret it as she loses conciousness and he has to lower her down to the floor.  
He kind of regrets it as he sees her coming to, face streaked with blood but her still being unfazed by the whole ordeal.   
And then, when she spits the blood out like it was nothing, he feels a stirring of emotion in him that has nothing to do with regret and everything to do with regard and fascination.  
So yeah, that's when he regrets breaking her nose.

While training with his knights, they all had to learn how to Force-heal each other almost immediatly. Had they not there wouldn't be enough knights left for him to be Master of.  
Back then they always took care of each other, right away, and so he does now, out of habit. They way she looks at him when he's done is... unsettling, to say the least. She looks like he felt when he watched her spit out that blood.  
Could they be more dissimilar? He finds cause for admiration in her being able to take a punch, she does in watching him undo damage done. It vexes him, her only looking at him like that when she thinks she's seeing light in him. Why can't she understand that the dark side is only concidered 'dark' because people not taking the time to understand it?

But then she tells him how she hasn't been given any chance to get to understand it. Skywalker failed her, just as he failed him. She tells him of how Skywalker, in his exile, seems to have come to some sort of realization at least. She tells him of how Skywalker has lied to her, how he has misled her and openly mistrusted her. How he showed her his contempt, just like he always did with him, when he was under his tutelage.  
Apparently he didn't poison her mind against Kylo, that much becomes clear when she all of a sudden confesses to how she has thought of him as her teacher. How she found compassion and friendship in him. Maybe he has misjudged her? Maybe they can  
_**NO!** Do NOT go there! For fucks sake, Kylo, you've been through this! DO NOT LISTEN TO HER LIES._

He leaves while he still can, mindful of not listening to her pitiful sobs or be tempted to search her feelings through the bond.

\---

He spends the most part of the next day in meditation, having been unable to go to sleep out of fear that he wouldn't be able to keep his shields up. He can soon take no more of those dreams she gives him glimpses of. They remind him all too much of the dreams he himself had, before the Red Room.  
  
Before she betrayed him, he refuses to be ashamed to admit, he harboured soft feelings for her. He had let himself feel for her, in a way he never had before. He had let himself feel hope. Hope for the future, for absolution, for an end to his being used by people, time after time.  
  
That hope had spread out through him, like a cancer. It had filled his head with dreams while he slept. Sometimes even when he was awake.   
In those dreams they had stood together, side by side, unfazed by other peoples expectations of them. Above consequence and responsibility to anyone else than the two of them.  
_That's_ what he thought they were fighting for. That was the dream he killed Snoke for.  
But she killed that hope, and replaced his dreams with nightmares. Where he previously dreamt of softness and enthusiastic explorations of each others bodies, he now only dreams of being alone, in darkness. 

Since she's been here, aboard his ship (by his design, none the less, what had he hoped to accomplish with this? Did he think it would bring him closure? Did he just want to watch her suffer, as alone and cut off from the only thing that mattered to her, just like she had made him?) his nightmares have been absent. In the wake of them there has been glimpses of her dreams, for sure, but he's also fairly certain that some of those dreams are originating from his feeble and easily distracted mind. That dream where he hate-fucks her, for example. He can't imagine she would've been able to look him in the eyes, much less try to behave when talking with him, had she shared in that punishing, merciless act of pure debauchery. He himself can hardly meet his eyes in the mirror after that particular dream.

The next night he can't refrain from sleep, and sure enough she's there. He is awoken by her gasping ”Ben!” right next to him and he's overwhelmed with her sadness, her longing and confusion. And her shame. Even though she's only in his bed for less than a second, her heat and the heady scent of her sex is clinging to his surroundings.  
  
He can't resist this anymore, he wants to give in so desperately, wants to feel that hope he once did, again. He wants to remember how it feels to think on the future and feel something other than nausea and regret.  
  
He wills his erection away, still refusing to succumb to such base human needs. Although he is starting to realize he might not be above these bodily reactions, he is still the master of his own body, if not his mind. To prove that to himself, he gets up and readies himself for the day.

 

He's been in his private study, the one where he never recieves any visitors, for several hours when he recieves a message from the Stormtrooper on guard duty. Apparently Rey has asked for a meeting with him. The hollowed out and blackened canyon that is his chest implodes on itself. The words on his holopad affecting him with a severity that would have been comical, were it not happening to him.  
  
Did she feel him next to her last night? Will she want to 'talk about it'? Will she force him to face all her sadness and shame? He can't do that. If those dreams really are her own and not some horrid way for her to try to worm herself under his skin and crush him with want, then she must loathe herself for dreaming as she does.   
Will she blame him for the dreams, just like he has blamed her? He can't stomach the idea of seeing her filled with shame and disgust directed at him.   
He had thought that that would be what would give him strength, but he was wrong (again). It wasn't her hate or fear that drew him to her on Takodana that first time they met in the flesh. It wasn't her anger and wanting to kill him in the snow on Starkiller Base that had him transfixed.  
No, it was how she wasn't afraid to let herself succumb to her emotions, how she wore her heart on her sleave without shame or regret.  
It was her compassion, for her friends, for his unworthy father. And for him. Even when she tried to kill him, he could feel the conflict in her, her unwillingness to harm him. She felt the connection back then aswell, even if she didn't understand it. They've been bound together for far longer than Snoke. In a way, he is certain he has always been waiting on her, having seen glimpses of a scared and soaking wet girl on a battlefield, having felt a presence at night, whilst dreaming of an ocean.  
He might have been right from the start, their destinies are intertwined, him trying to resist it is but a battle he was always meant to lose.

If she were to stand before him now, her shame and regret evident for him to see, knowing he has been the one to force those feelings out in her, would be unbearable. He sends his reply to the trooper, ”bring her at her earliest convinience”, before he has time to talk himself in to a frenzy.

Whilst waiting for her, he gathers all the intel he has on the whereabouts of the resistance. She's long overdue for a report on them, no matter what her objective for this meeting is. Upon finding that the traitor, FN-2187, has decided to share a home with the woman who bit Hux, he can't hold back a tiny tug at the corner of his mouth, before concidering the implications of this. He has felt the affection between Rey and the traitor, maybe the parts of her nights not spent forcing out dreams of him, she spends dreaming blissfully of FN-2187? Why does he feel reluctant to divulge information that he fear might hurt her? What is wrong with him??

He feels her then, she's on the move, towards him. He does what he can to calm himself down, to school his features into a mask of quiet indifference. He opens the doors for her with a flick of his hand as soon as he hears the knock.  
She looks composed and has a set to her jaw that doesn't scream 'pervert!' but rather 'I can do this, I can do this'.   
The moment her eyes meets his he can see her composure crumble and instead fill with remorse and worry, but it's gone just as quickly and he's sure he has misread her. To hear her call him 'supreme leader' doesn't give him the sense of superiority he had hoped it would. Quite the contrary, it makes him feel further removed, from her and from everything else. Alone and lacking. Before he has a chance to succumb to these musings, he hears his old name in her soft and breathy voice. Not like he heard it last night, when she spoke it with strength and joy, but with desperation (and not the sexy fun kind). He should tell her off for using that name, he should rage against it, impart with her the importance of letting that fucking name die like it should already have.  
But she loooks so pathetic that he can't muster up the energy it would require to look past her desperation. So he sighs, and he tells her. 

When she starts to laugh at him he immidiately starts to flog himself, in only mentally. Of course she would fool him, taunt him, make him look like an ass with his misplaced compassion! Why didn't he listen to Snoke?! Compassion is for the weak of heart and mind and will _always_ be used againt him. Force damn her to the deepest pits of Mustafar. He uses all the power his hate brings forth in him to keep the cool facade in the face of her mirth. Once her gloating has quieted down, he continues.

When she uses his old, dead name for the third time in as many minutes, he snaps. He knows she does it to unnerve him, to confuse him. His quiet calm falls off his shoulders like a shroud, his anger pulsing out from his skin. He can tell that this barely controlled rage of his is more unnerving to her than his screaming and overstated anger. He loves to see her cowering like this. He loves to hear the fear and child-like sorrow that swaddles her, like a shroud of her own. Doesn't he..? 

_Oh for the kriffing kriffs sake of all the kriffing kriffs..._

He hates seeing her like that. All the power and radiance he's grown accustomed to from her, swapped for the eyes of a child that's been left behind by parents that concidered a few nights of drunkenness more valuable than a child. He hates to be reminded of the years that was stolen from her, from him(!). She should have been trained in the ways of the Force from infancy, light or dark, it doesn't even matter. Her and her powers should have been celebrated and honoured, honed into the perfect vessel of the Force he's sure she would have been. 

He relents to her once again. Begs her to take a seat, as his equal, at his table. He softens too much, divulges too much. He always shows his hand when she asks him. This power she has over him, to twist his head, to confuse his certainty, it floods him and apparently gives her the impression that she'll be allowed the freedom to ask him anything.  
  
The question he has dreaded, has hoped for, has asked himself the answer to a million times, suddenly lands between them. He can almost see the different syllables in the air between them, he can weigh their individual worth. And he knows he has nothing to gain from lying to her, not about this. When his answer comes, every word is a revelation to him, news and nothing he has allowed himself to think before this moment. And he knows it to be the indisputable truth.  
  
Had she said yes to his proposition, they would have figured it all out, together they could have resolved everything. Together they could have acted as one, the perfect balance of light and dark, of trust and doubt, of the future and the past.  
He would have given her anything and everything, had she said yes to him. 

But only in that moment, and that moment is long gone. And he can't stand to look at her any longer.

When the doors close behind her he is certain the table and everything on it will self-combust from his frustration alone, but all that happens is that he falls back down on his chair, all fight drained from him. He slumps ungracefully and has to remind himself to breathe every few seconds.

\---

He never managed to get anything done after she left. He was sat in his solitude at the table, just looking unseeing out in the room, thinking.  
He has known for quite some time now that what Snoke strived to accomplish with The First Order is not what he, Kylo Ren, would choose as the path forward for his First Order. And it _is_ his order now. He is the Supreme Leader, his words ought to be law, with no-one daring to question his commands. Does he want people to follow him blindly? As long as he can be sure that what he decrees is what is best for the galaxy as a whole, then yes, he _would_ like blind obedience. But how can he always make sure that his way forward is the best? How to make sure one isn't clouded by personal wants and follies?  
_Maybe one can't, and maybe that's the danger in putting all the decisions in the hand of one supreme ruler, one who has no chance of knowing every inch of an, in regards to having the possibility to visit each and every city on each and every planet, moon and habitable asteroid, endless galaxy. Maybe it's a flawed idea from the very beginning._

He takes to pacing the room, to and fro, wearing a path on the polished floor where his boots dull the shine.

_But the peace, that's what is to gain from a single, all-powerful leader. Someone to make sure the different worlds and governments keep their dealings amicable, and that no-one tries to overstep their bounds by forcibly taking over their neighboring worlds._

He stops in his tracks as he realizes that's exactly what the Order, and the Empire before that, has been doing. Always demanding submission by force, taking without asking, leaving death and destruction in its wake. He just always thought of it as a necessity, a means to an end, where the end wasn't something he was ever interested in. What actually _is_ his objective here?   
He followed Snoke to find a belonging, he executed his every command to ensure he would have a place by his side, right up until he was asked to kill the girl. Why wasn't he able to? Because she brought something to life in him, something that had been awakened by his father's last touch to his chin. Something brittle and precious in a barren wasteland.   
He didn't kill Snoke for power, it was all for her. And he didn't rise as Supreme Leader for power, he did it to avenge his broken heart. He did it to make sure the power she held over him would be forever snuffed out, so that he could once again return to the simpler times of only craving dominance. 

But inside of him now lives the knowledge, or maybe it never dissapeared in the first place? That order and submission might not be what's best for the galaxy, if only because the sheer enormity of funds it would take to uphold it. If it could be done without the need to steal infants from their parents to turn them into mindless soldiers, then maybe. Both Stormtroopers and Jedi alike are forced into a life of servitude, where the need to eradicate the self and give up ones autonomy is tantamount to slavery. And if he can't figure out a way to keep the galaxy safe and thriving without the need for slaves, then he probably shouldn't be doing this. 

He has known all along, maybe since she looked down on him from the Falcon with eyes devoid of compassion, or maybe he has known since he saw her in the forest of Takodana, or maybe he has even known from the moment she was born. She _is_ the end game. If only in his own, private game. Maybe that's all one person can focus on, really.  
It takes him some time to register her precense, just outside the gates of his. She's waiting for him, patiently, instead of barging in. He's still struggling to wrap his head around the enormity of this epiphany, that _maybe, just maybe,_ he ought to focus on himself instead of on something as utterly unattainable as overseeing an entire galaxy. To say he's distracted would not be overstating it. 

He can hear her talk to him and he suspects he answered her, but he closes the connection without really registering what happened between them. He needs to meditate on this. He wants to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I ended it in the middle of a sentence.


	8. Regression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One step forward but a parsec back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note new tags, I added 'dubious consent' because Kylo doesn't really listen, and or act, to what Rey is saying here.

She's in the gym again, meditating, when she feels him reaching out to her.  
_”Rey? You got time?”_  
  
_Honestly, what does he expect? Me having a busy social calendar? Being booked solid and having to try and squeeze him in amongst my many plans? Come on, Ben..._

 _”Yes, I have all the time in the world, concidering I'm actually_ doing _time, held captive aboard an enemy ship with pretty much nothing to fill my days._ ” she answers before she can stop herself. _No, **you** come on, Rey! Quit it, you're supposed to play nice, remember??_  
Deep sigh and a pinch to the bridge of her nose let's her collect herself enough to try and make amends.  
_”No, sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm really glad to hear from you. Have you had time to think about me being allowed access to your books?”_  
She tries her best to sound both apologetic and responsible and grateful. Someone who can be trusted around precious things, unsupervised ideally.

There's a pause, long enough to make it seem like this is the first he's heard of her wanting access to the library. _He can't have forgotten? Is he overworked, underslept or just generally very unfocused?_ But then he clears his throat and answers slowly.  
_”I have, but I think it best if I accompany you, at least the first few times.”_  
  
He makes it sound like he's already regretting this decision, but Rey is holding her breath, adamant in not kriffing this chance up by blurting out stupidities that might well ruin it for her. In fact, she's holding both breath and tongue long enough that Kylo has to prod at her mind to ascertain she's still there.  
  
He plucks her nervous joy and anticipation from her head, making her answering him unnecessary.  
_”All right then, I'll have someone bring you over to me in an hours time, that works for you?”_

She can't help an eye-roll at this, _again with the pretense that I have other pressing matters at hand_. But she'll give him that, maybe all he wants is a feeling of normalcy. Aloud she only says _”yes, thank you.”_

 

A little over an hour later she is standing next to Kylo in front of dull, gray doors. He needs to peel off a glove to place at a scanner, to grant them both access. Inside it's notably colder and the light is dimmed.  
”Climate controlled environment. To make sure the texts won't suffer any unnecessary damage.” He motions her onwards, deeper down the room. He hangs back to observe her as she takes the room in. 

It's a magnificent collection, it's apparent that he knows that. This ship is as close to a permanent home he's likely to ever have, so he will keep all these writings, his most treasured possessions, here with him.  
  
The room itself is actually separate from the rest of the ship, it's walls fortified to the point of being indestructible. Were someone to plant bombs all over the ship, this room would still be left intact.  
  
All this he tells her as she walks slowly down the aisles, her hand hovering, but not touching, over the backs of the multitude of ancient tomes, new holotexts, books bound in the leather of unknown animals and books lined with metal with the titles embossed in scripture she's never seen before.  
  
Further down, the shelves are lined with devices the size of a fist (not one of her fists, they're too small, but not as large as his fists either) in different shapes. 'Holocrons', he tells her, like that should mean something to her. As it doesn't she returns to the books. 

”What are you looking for?” he asks in a quiet voice, the silence among the books calling for softness.

”I'm not sure. Maybe something that could shed some light on our Force Bond? Or something on different fighting styles? How to build a lightsaber?” She could go on, there is so much she doesn't know but she has also never been in the presence of this much knowledge, and she can't think on where to begin. The possibilites seem endless and it throws her. 

Behind her Kylo closes his eyes and bows his head. She can feel him, in the air, in the Force, in her mind, as he centers himself and allows him to sink down into a place she cannot follow. He stretches both his arms out, and as the books come soaring to him, he plucks them from the air and gathers them in his arms. 

”Did you like, _call_ those books to you?” she asks him with awe in her voice. 

He doesn't answer, instead he walks over to a table and sets the eight books down. He sits himself down on one side of the table and uses the Force to draw out a chair from the other side.  
”I have read a fair amount of texts on the subject of Force bonds, these three I have not yet gone through. These two books are on different fighting techniques, used by both dark- and lightsiders. This book here seems to be on how to fight without the aid of the Force, but I dare say that will be on a level far below you... Lastly, these two books are on lightsaber construction, both the Jedi way and the Sith. The bases are fairly similar to each other, but you'll find the Sith have greater leniency when it comes to adhearing to rules.”

”Just like always, then.” She's not sure if she mean it as a quip or a statement, she just felt the need to respond in some fashion. She wishes she could have said something more relevant, intelligent. 

”The Sith turned out to be quite the sticklers for following aswell, actually. I thought that when I left the Jedi I would be free, but as it turned out, the shackles were only of a different design.”  
His voice is wistful and his eyes unfocused, staring off into a distant past she can only make guesses about.  
She doubts there is anything she can say to that, so she keeps her mouth uncharacteristically shut.

The quiet doesn't last long enough for it to become unpleasant, instead she reaches for the book on dark side combat, as he reaches for a book that might contain knowledge of their bond and it's properties.  
She leans back in her chair, he leans forward but with his back held ramrod straight. After a while she hears him rummage around in a hidden drawer in the table, and produce a notebook and a pencil. She tries her best to keep her surprise from leaking out, but to see Kylo frikkin Ren take down meticulous notes in a miniscule and extremely tight script is such an unexpected experience, she can't help herself. 

"What?" He asks her when he has finished writing down what was obviously something of great importance. 

She's not sure exactly _what_ it is, but as she talks she figures it out. "Nothing! Or well, not nothing, I just didn't expect you to write like that..." 

He interrupts her before she can gather her thoughts in to words. "Like what? How have you spent your days thinking my writing will look like?" His voice is both guarded and annoyed. 

"I guess I just thought your script would be more like, well more like _you_ , is all. You know, wild and bristling and barely understandable." She notices the corners of her mouth drawing themselves up into a semblance of a smile before she can stop herself. 

He doesn't answer, but he also doesn't break their study session up. Instead he returns to his book and his notes, only now there's the tiniest creak between his eyebrows. Not an annoyed one, more pensieve. 

They sit in companiable silence for the next several hours, the only sounds the rustling of turning papers and the occasional ”huh” in surprised understanding or the occasional ”huh?” in disbelief or confusion. 

Not until Rey is overtaken by a huge yawn does Kylo notice the time and moves to stand up.

”Should you so wish, we can continue this tomorrow night, but as for now, I must insist on returning to my duties.” He has walked over to her side of the table, and reaches out a hand to her, as to help her up from the chair. Rey makes a mental note on where in the book she's at, and without reflecting on it she takes his hand.  
His ungloved hand.  
  
He spasms as their skin comes into contact, and she can tell he's about to snatch his hand away, but in a moment of unthinking recklessness she grabs on to it tighter, refusing to let him go. Instead she uses the hold on him as leverage as she rises from the chair.  
Not until she stands before him, does she release him. There is a slight tint to the sharp ridges of his cheekbones, and she lets herself fantasize that it's because of her, because of how the feel of her touch affects him, just as the feel of him does her.  
She can see how he grinds his teeth together by the way the muscles of his jaw ripples, like an unruly sea.

”I would appreciate that very much, Kylo Ren” she says in a soft and apologetic voice. She knows she's crossed a line, but she's not sure how far and what the line was separating her from.

He simply looks at her, all tense and barely controlled storm, before giving her a quick nod as he, in the same movement, turns and walks out. He doesn't stay to make sure she leaves with him, but a Stormtrooper moves to stand in the doorway he just left by, apparently waiting for her to come with them.

\---

That night she dreams of straddling him as he sits in that same chair, in his hallowed library, with the same smell of dusty old books as where they spent their entire evening. She dreams of how he tries to keep her quiet, as to not disturb the sacred texts they're surronded with. How he tries to swallow her every gasp, her every exclamation. And when they both come closer to their unravelling, and his ministrations to control her noices is proving more and more fruitless, she dreams of how he stuffs his fingers in her mouth and how she bites down on them, on him.

 

She wakes with a smile on her lips.

 

\---

They fall in to some sort of routine. She wakes, eats, exercises, meditates, eats, meet Kylo by the library, reads until past dinnertime, they part and then she goes to sleep, only to dream of him. It's never not dreams that leave her waking up sweaty and wet and aching between her legs, with images of debauchery fresh in her mind's eye.

They repeat their parting lines as if rehearsed for a play. Every evening he tells her that 'should you so wish, we can continue this tomorrow night', and she always answers with 'I'd appreciate that very much, Kylo Ren.'  
He never reaches for her hand to help her up again.

As the days go by, she becomes more relaxed, less afraid of angering him and losing access to all this knowledge. She dares to comment on what she's reading out loud. She asks him questions and she encourages him to do the same. While reading about lightsabers she's suddenly reminded of the saber he let her use, when he broke her nose. When he, almost reluctantly, tells her it's his old saber, she feels it with a gravity that's more on par with him pledging her his life.  
Using someone else's lightsaber isn't a big deal, so why does it feel like he meant it as such? Why does she take it like it did?

Over a week passes in this manner. She has been given several new books, books Kylo apparently deems educational for her. He isn't trying to woo her over to the dark side, he gives her a wide range of teachings, on both the positive and negative aspects of each side.  
The more she learns, the more she comes to realize the flaws to both sides. The stubbornness and refusal to compromise that poison every aspect of the Jedi and Sith alike. She gets the impression that the different sides chooses to focus the building of their respective religion on what they're _not_ , on slandering the ideals of the opposition, rather than doing what would be most beneficial to its followers.  
  
She's been studying a book on light side fight techniques and all of a sudden she thinks she's figured enough of the differences between how the light and the dark approach things, to dare suggest to Kylo they go try some things out.

Kylo cocks an eyebrow at her, and through the bond she get's an image of how their last traning session ended. She rolls her eyes so far back she's at serious risk of falling out of her chair. It's with obvious mirth and skepticism that Kylo rises and beckons her to follow him, out of the library. She's pretty sure she hears him mutter "It's your funeral..." from up front.

\--- 

”Okey, let me get this straight.” Kylo Ren says, looking her up and down, sizing her up. ”You want me to teach you lightsaber techniques, that I've learnt from the Dark Side?”

 _Eye roll_ ”No, Ben-Ren, I want to learn different types of lightsaber combat techniques, regardless of where they're from! I've read about the Forms and I've gone through them and I've used them, to some extent, but I suspect there is a lot, _a lot_ more to learn. And I have no one to teach me.” She pauses to look him directly in the eyes, with an intensity she hopes he gets, to say ”And I don't care about light or dark side, I have truly come to believe that there is only the Force and that we all should strive for balance.”

He looks at her with a quizzical expression. He starts to speak serveral times, before he decides on how to proceed.  
”You honestly think, that there is no 'light' nor 'dark' side? You think that you could use all the parts of the Force as you see fit, without it having any consequences on your soul?”

She senses a trap, of sorts. As if he wants to trick her into showcasing her arrogance and ignorance, but like a defiant child she can't help feel like should she back down on her statement now, she would lose ground.  
”Yes, that's what I believe” she tells him with emphasis.

”You don't know the power of the Dark Side." His voice is low and intense. Filled with sadness and an obvious wish for things to be different. "If you did you wouldn't think that. Sometimes I think the Dark Side is all there is to the Force, and that the Light that people are talking about is just absence of power, of Force sensitivity.” He keeps her gaze for as long as he can, but in the end it hurts him to confess to these thoughts. It hurts him because he can't keep looking into the eyes of the embodiment of the Light Side, which is what he's sure she is, and claim that he doesn't believe in _her_.

”I know I don't know nearly enough of all of this, but you have to remember, I pretty much just found out about all this. Sometimes I like to think that I have a clearer view of it all because I'm unbiased, nothing has been drilled into me since infancy, I've been able to face it all objectively...” She would have continued by explaining how there's another part of her that knows that's not true, but she's interrupted by a loud snort from Kylo, that's quickly followed by an actual, stars and 'novas, laughter.  
  
She didn't think him capable of producing a sound so filled with care-free amusement. It's riveting and it transfixes her. She can't look away from his mouth that opens wide enough to show her his perfect row of uneven teeth, she can't get enough of how his eyes wrinkle when his cheeks are all bunched up. How he exposes the pale expanse of his throat to her, blue veins clearly visible just below the surface of his, almost translucent, skin. Should she fasten her mouth over that one large vein, close to his adam's apple, she would feels his pulse, would taste his essence. She can't even remember to feel embarassed, his laughter is like a spell on her.

”Yes, yes, you sure are the very epitome of objectiveness.” His laughter dies down and he dries the tears from his eyes, saying " thank you for this", the laughter not yet gone from his voice. Rey finally recollects herself enough to use his glee in her favour.

”And nothing says 'thank you' quite like a lesson in advanced combined saber- and Force-usage.” She hopes she has her most winning smile on display, and apparently she must, for Kylo acquiesces after a mere few heartbeats.

”Allright then, Jedi. Let's lead you down a path of destruction...”

”For your information, I seriously doubt you'll be able to lead me anywhere. I stand assured I won't fall for either side, but will remain in the middle.”

”Oh, you do, do you? Well then, don't let me keep you from proving me wrong. Let's start with an exercise me and my Knights developed.”

It feels almost flirtatious, their quick-witted banter, tinged with nothing but amusement and anticipation. Rey tries her best to reign her wayward mind in, but it's hard with the remnants of laughter still in his voice. With his eyes that are suddenly lighter than she's ever seen them, an amber glow to the deep brown she didn't know them capable of.  
It's lucky for her that he's all business now, striding into action and positioning himself into opening stance and instructing her to follow his lead.

It's a different sort of exercise, not something she recognizes from the Jedi texts and not something she's been shown by Finn during their sessions. It's more reminiscient of the style she herself developed while fighting for survival in the Goazon Badlands of Jakku.  
Ruthless and full of cheap tricks and feinting. Distracting the opponent with one thing and then use the confusion and momentum of them against them. It's basically a lesson in fighting dirty. She knows how to do that.

Once Kylo realizes this, he moves on to something else.

”When growing up with my political royalty mother, I had to practice all sorts of high societal nonsense. Among other things, how to duel with actual, metal sabres. Fencing. It was something I never thought could have any practial usage, but as it turns out, the agility and delicacy of the movements have actually helped me a lot during the years. Lending me a sure-footedness and balance I wouldn't have learnt otherwise.”

He is in full teacher mode now, Rey can se he is enjoying himself. He is actually quite pedagogical in his approach to teaching her.  
”So how's this 'fencing' with metal sabres different from regular light saber combat?”

”Think of it as a dance.” he answers her, like she's supposed to know what he means by that.

”What's a dance?” 

He falters in his pacing, does sort of a double-take, before asking her incredulous  
”...you've never heard of dancing?”

Loath to admit to not knowing something, especially when he adopts _that_ tone with her, she answers him surly. ”No, should I? Has it something to do with scavenging or bartering?”

He rises his eyebrows half way up to his hair line. ”Good skies, you have led a vastly different life, haven't you...You know of music, right?”

This is turning out to be quite the embarrasing lesson for Rey.  
”No, whats that.” She can feel herself actually _pouting_ , but to show weakness and be so open about the low place she's from is not something she is comfortable with, with anyone, least of all someone that's up until very recently she has considered her mortal enemy.

He shakes his head the tiniest bit before turning towards a droid by the wall. ”Droid, give us a Naboo classic tune for ballroom dancing.” The droid readily aquieces and soothing sounds starts flowing through the air. ”This is music.”

Ah. Of course she knows of 'music', she just never had a name for it. Trying to mask her ignorance as willful, she decides to continue with asking, rather inane, questions. 

”Whats it for?” 

”For recreational pleasure?”

”Oh. And when do you imagine me having time for any sort of 'recreational pleasure'? Whilst fighting tooth and nail to stay alive in the Jakku desert? While hardly being able to move due to me starving? Whilst fleeing the First Order, and you?”

”Fair enough. Not much down time in your life. Let me show you, come here.”

She walks up to him, filled with apprehension. He reaches his hands out, takes her left hand in his right and places it around his waist, flattening her palm against the broad expanse of his right side. Then he puts his own hand on her left shoulder, as he takes her right hand in his left. There's less than a foot of humming air separating their bodies, and Rey swallows embarrassingly audiably whilst feeling extremely relieved that he's wearing his gloves and can't feel how sweaty her palm is against his hand.

His voice has dropped a few octaves and is a soothing murmur. ”Now, you and I have an advantage in this due to our bond. If you come inside my head now, I'm sure we will be able to do this without trouble. Just follow my lead, Rey.”  
His eyes are too intense for her to be able to do anything other than exactly what he tells her. She pushes herself inside his mind, and without him actually showing her anything specific, her doubts dissipates, and he starts to lead her in something that is decidedly nothing like fighting, but she can still see what he meant. They flow, advance and retreat in tandem. Were you to speed these movements up and add some sort of weapon, it actually would be a little like combat training.

They weave around the gym, feet in perfect synchronicity, eyes still locked. The light she has never before noticed in his irises brightening up his whole face, making her breath more labored than what's warranted.  
It's when he squeezes her hand in his, while the hand on her shoulder tightens and the thumb starts to caress her collarbone, she looses her focus. She suddenly realizes how close this dancing thing comes to having sex: the answering movements, the heavy breathing, the push and pull. Overwhelmed with memories of the last few nights dreams, him caressing her, pressing her down, underneath him, on top of him, and the bond still open between them. It's a disaster. 

His eyes flashes as he falters in their movements and comes to a stop. She's not at all prepared for what she's all of a sudden bombarded with through the bond. Pure, unbridled hatred.  
Her breath catches in her throat, her neck and chest blossoming out in burning flowers, spreading to her cheeks. She can't look away, even though every single second is a punch to her gut, a slap in her face. She has never seen anyone look so repulsed by her, as if the very idea of her is beneath him. He releases her like the mere proximity of her offends him and he sweeps out. She follows without thinking. 

 

She needs to talk to him about this, explain away what he saw. She has to convince him of it not being anything of consequence. She needs to try to save what they have accomplished these past few days.

He's at the far end of a long corridor, his gait having carried him far away at a speed she's hard pressed to match. If she doesn't do this now she doubts she'll ever be able to, or even be allowed to, so she cries out for him. He stops but does not turn. 

She keeps running for a few meters, before slowing down and finally coming to a stop.

”Kylo, please. I'm...” What is she? Sorry? _Is that why you followed him, to beg forgiveness for what your subconsious has been up to while you've been sleeping? Kriff that, it's not **my** fault! And I refuse to feel bad for making him uncomfortable, he's the one to keep you locked up on this ship, for kriffs sake! No wonder your mind starts to crumble, if he didn't want you going crazy, then maybe he should grant you your freedom back? And also, he's been confusing you! Being all nice, helping you, conversing with you, and then showing you how to dance?? Come on, he can't act all surprised when your mind starts to wander. Doesn't he know what confinement will do to a person!?_

During her quiet argument with herself, he has turned around ahead of her, and while she has all together stopped now, he seems to have changed his mind about fleeing all of a sudden.

He stalks closer, closer. He seems feral to her, making her feel like prey. She backs away from him, an involuntary response to cower before your fears. When her back hits the wall and she can't escape any further, she knows he won't let her obvious trepidation and discomfort deter him.  
He's close enough for her to feel his body heat, but it's nothing like how it felt mere seconds ago, when they were dancing. There is nothing sweet about it, what so ever.  
  
His eyes never leaving hers, even when she tries to avert them, trying to create a space between them that isn't there.  
She looks around, behind him, searching for a means to an escape, but he won't have any of it, his hands gripping her wrists, wholly without any concerns for if he might be hurting her.  
She feebly tries to fight off his hold on her, but her unconvincing struggles only puts a mean lear on his lips, as he slams her hands up high, above her head.  
He adjusts her wrists to trap them both in a single-handed, vice-like grip, leaving one hand free to form a clawlike grip on her face, her jaw, her throat. Holding her still, in place, in his mercy. And she can see clearly there is no room for such a thing in him.

Kylo leans in closer, too close, to growl at her "Is this what you want? What you dream of?"  
He is too rough, his hand crushing her wrists together, causing her discomfort and pain.  
"No" she breathes, not daring to meet his eyes.

"Do you want me to let go?" He moves in closer, his warm breath moist on her face.

"Yes" she whispers, but he puts his mouth close enough to hers to breathe it in, swallow her protestations whole. He steals her voice and what little pride she had left.  
Leaving her with a guilty and shamefilled "...no"

She can hear how she sounds, a pitiful whimper leaving her mouth, her shame staining her cheeks a deep crimson and her panties with her want for him.

"When you lay awake at night, unable to sleep, do you wish for my hands on you?" He forces a leg in between hers, pushing his thigh hard against her wetness, the pressure both intoxicating and frightening. Both all that she's ever wanted and the worst thing to have ever happened to her.  
"No" she lies, still not daring to meet his eyes. Her voice barely reaching outside of her lips.

"Do you ache for me? Am I the only one you dream of? The only one to make your cunt drip with yearning?" His voice still steady, still harsh and unforgiving. His crude language should disgust her, but instead her ragged breath catches in her throat when she hears him use that word. She can almost feel how his lips and tongue move over it, _cunt_. Goosebumps erupts all over her body.

"No" she almost pants, a sound so wanton she wouldn't have believed her capeable of producing it. It's a 'no' that sounds, and feels, like a 'yes'.

"Do you long for me to touch you? To tear off your clothes, to shove my fingers, my hand, my tongue, _my cock_ , deep inside you?" His lips are against her ear, she can feel him inside her brain, his voice filling her, his thigh rolling against her midsection, the friction quickly building up to an orgasm so forcefully held back she fears that it will leave her for ever ruined.

”No”, she still tries to safeguard what small piece of sanity that could still be hers. Her ragged breath and the way the whole lower part of her body is undulating towards his midsection, despite her best efforts to reign her physical response to his closeness in, is working against her.

His voice is a caress, a shelter from the sandstorms, a promise of water after a day in the desert, the return of a ship long thought lost. ”Rey... Are you lying to me?”

She tries, she really does. She wants to lie but her whole being is screaming at her to submit, to yield to him. _Pride is but a shield for the weak to hide behind_ she hear in the back of her mind and out of her mouth spills the truth.  
"Yes" she confesses, the single syllable more a sob than a language.

"Look at me Rey. Meet my eyes, don't be so craven. Face me, face what you detest most about yourself" he commands her as he pulls his own face back.  
She obeys, forces her eyes open, falling down into hard and steely and closed off blackness. There is no kindness, no comfort, no compassion there.  
"Well too bad. I. Don't. Want. You." He releases her then, leaves her alone with her mortification and all her shortcomings. Sweeps out of the hallway, out of her reach.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly I can't help but picturing Rey as Hermione and Kylo as Snape, what's wrong with me???


	9. Spot the Buffy-reference!

Rey wants nothing more than to slide down the wall and crumble at the floor in a puddle of self-loathing.  
  
That she finally revealed, not only to herself but also to the object of her desires, how she felt?  
Had she been given the choice she most definitely wouldn't have done it like this.  
If she's being totally honest she would have prefered to keep that particular piece of knowledge hidden deep down inside of her to never see any sort of light.   
Instead she was forced to confess to the most shameful parts of herself. That not only is she physically attracted to her captor, her nemesis, her sworn enemy, but she also seems to have some rather... unsavory(?) inclinations? Not only has her libido (finally) been awakened, and not only was it awoken by Satan's little helper, but she's apparently also depraved??  
  
She had always figured she'd fall for someone sweet, someone who took care of her and looked out for her. Someone who would cherish her and make her feel safe.   
But maybe that was what the child that had to fend for herself back in the desert needed. And that kid grew up all self-sufficient and can look out for herself now, so her needs today is something else entirely. Apparently what all-grown-up-Rey need is someone to challenge her and who whispers filth in her ears whilst man-handling her.  
  
It's too much for her to handle right now. Had she lived in a galaxy where Stockholm syndrome was a thing, she would have chalked it up to that, but unfortunately her language doesn't include that explanation. 

What is fortunate for Rey, is that she didn't survive the blistering heat and famine of Jakku to let herself be broken by some boy.  
She talks reason with herself before she can start the sliding-down-the-wall process.  
  
_Yes, you did get (extremely) aroused by his actions just now, and yes, you were basically overcome by lust when we were dancing earlier, but so what? For him to act and respond in the way he did was highly unwarranted! So he doesn't share in those feelings, that's ok, but he really could be more mindful of mine! Behaving like he did was nothing less than a dick move._

Rey manages to piss herself off enough to get the strength needed to stalk back to her quarters. The more she thinks of their altercation, the more she finds he was in the wrong, while she really is being unjustly punished. He has neither ground nor warrant to taunt and ridicule her like this!  
But on the other hand, how dumb must she be to expect rationality and fairness of Kylo the fuck-up Ren? 

”Gah!” she exclaims in frustration, scaring a mouse droid off its course.

Once back in her room slash holding cell, she angrily tears her clothes off and stomps in to the 'fresher.  
She hasn't even gotten everything off before she finds herself under the spray, letting the freezing water chill her overheated body down, washing the last remnants of her want for Kylo away.  
  
She stands under the icy downpour till she's numb all over and breathing comes easily.   
Once she's no longer shaking out of frustration and anger and poorly repressed sexual tension, she starts to unwrap her breast band. Her fingers are still shaking though, due to the cold now, and it's a challenge to get the sticky, heavy fabric to come loose from her body. Kicking off her panties is easier. She's quietly relieved that by wearing them into the shower, she effectively hid all traces of her body's treacherous responses. Her soaked-through knickers could have nothing to do with how Kylo made her dripping wet by tormenting her earlier, at least there's no evidence of them being wet prior to the shower now.  
  
She stays in the 'fresher longer than necessary, hoping the freezing numbness will spread over to Kylo.  
_No-one has ever been more in need of a cold kriffing shower in the history of this galaxy_ she thinks, as she tries her best to send the chills his way, but nothing else of her.

It's hours later and she still hasn't managed to succumb to sleep. She's not even tossing and turning in the bed. Even if the cold shower stilled her racing hormones for a while, her sexual frustration has been rapidly and uncontrollably building since she left it. Now when she turns under the scratchy blankets, the tease of them against her skin is nothing short of maddening. Each rasp a reminder of how the wall felt against her back; whenever the blankets snakes their way around her body she's reminded of how he crowded in on her, how the leather of his gloves pushed at her boundaries as well as her skin. Each scrape a reminder of the flood of emotions he lured out from her. The bastard.

It begins with that thought, of him being a bastard, and how it seems to her that he doesn't like this situation any more than she does. So why is she still held captive? Does he really think the possible future for any type of rebellion rests solely on her skinny shoulders? No, he probably just does it out of petty spite. And if that's the case, then maybe she can work with that.  
If she were to make him feel way too uncomfortable, then maybe he'll realize their arrangement isn't beneficial to either one of them?   
Apparantly he notices her bodily reactions and involuntary day- and night dreams. And it's equally apparent to her that it's more than a nuisance to him.  
The thought of her naked and pressed against him is obviously repulsive to him, so why not use that to her advantage?  
  
_I can take the shame and humiliation of laying myself and my yearning for some sort of belonging and sexual fullfillment bare to him! What do I care? He is still a horrible person and I never would have felt like this had I not been cooped up here, on his ship, with him as my almost only sorce for companionship!_ (Rey does a rather splendid work of repressing any and all memory of the fact that her dreams of Kylo might have started a lot earlier than when she was brought on board.) 

Whether this "plan" of hers truly comes from a need to get off this ship or just from a need to simply get off, is neither here nor there. Once she has gotten the thought stuck in her head, she can't shake it. And once she has decided on this (kind of creepy) course of action, she wastes no time in kicking her trousers and undergarments off.

Her hands poised over a breast and her sex respectively, she takes a moment to think this through.  
_Let me get this straight. I plan on getting released from this ward-like arrangement, were the last scraps of the once so proud Resistance, is kept at a forced armstice due to me being held at veritable gun-point, is to let all my sexual frustration and lust for the Supreme Leader, not only known to him, but unable for him to ignore? I plan on making him so sexually uncomfortable that he'll have no other option than to put an end to my "guestage"-situation and send me on my merry way?_

Admittedly, this doesn't sound like the best laid plan she's heard of, but her freely admitting to herself that she's feeling something other than hate towards Kylo is refreshing enough to make the rest of the plan sound kind of okay.   
She has a lingering suspicion that her inexperience in the field of sex, romance and over-all attachment plays a part here. Had she actually ever _had_ sex, she probably wouldn't react like this. And maybe she would also have a better grasp on how to handle this whole situation.   
As it is, this is the first encounter she's had to strong, erotic emotions. And when her "sexual awakening" (as Rose called it when she promised her it would come to her, sooner or later) finally happened, it had to be with _Kylo Ben Chewbacca Skywalker-Organa-Solo Ren_ of all people?? _Why universe, whyyyyy_ she mock-weeps into her pillow. 

But then she shakes her head to clear it of any and all doubts. It might not be a smart plan, or even a good one, but it's all that she's got.

 _Then here goes nothing, I guess..._ Rey thinks before filling her head with the heady images from earlier in the evening.  
  
Kylo holding her hand and her midsection, twirling her around to the dulcet tones of the music. Keeping her in his arms, held tight against his hard body. The feeling of how he with each breath pushed his chest even closer, the well-defined planes of his torso roughly caressing her sensitive, hardened nipples. How the exertion made both of their breaths ragged and laboured. How his eyes never left her's and how his pupils were blown wide enough to make his eyes seem black, too dark to keep her from drowning in them. How they pulled her in, how his eyes on her made her feel like the single most precious being in the galaxy.  
And then later, in the corridor, with his thigh rubbing against her swollen and heated sex, dampening her underwear, making them chafe against her slick, oversensitive folds, offering short-lived relief whenever he made contact with her clitoris. She is certain she must have left proof of how deep he affected her on his pant's leg.  
  
She thinks of how his breath against her neck and ear was all moist and heated, rhyming so well with what she felt further down.  
  
These are the thoughts she lets lose in her mind as she tears down all the barricades separating her mind from Kylo's.  
It's not that she actively tries to invade his mind, it's more that she leaves nothing of her own self-restraint inbetween them to stop herself from tumbling into his conciousness. The feeling on his end must be sudden and overwhelming, like a tidal wave of someone elses emotions taking him over in an instant.  
  
There's no doubt in her mind that should he so wish he could block even this out, so she resolves to act quickly. The second she feels him noticing the new lack of boundaries between them, she plunges two fingers deep inside of herself and almost chokes on a moan.

\---

It took her less than a minute to climax. She has never been that quick before, not even close.  
She felt him beside her mind, silent and observing. A heavy weight in her head, but not anywhere else.  
  
She knows she did her best to hold him there, aware of her and of what she was doing and how it made her feel, but she also knows that had he wanted to, he could have wrenched himself free from her. He didn't though. _What could that mean?_  
  
Once the orgasm took control over her she lost the ability to focus on the bond and when the tremors had passed he was gone. She didn't reach out for him again, instead she got up, cleaned herself off and took a long drink of much needed water.  
Then she fell down onto the hard bed and fell asleep in an instant. 

When she wakes the next morning it is to a belly full of regrets. It almost churns over inside of her, an unruly sea of shame. All the images and memories of what she thought and what she did is howling through her.  
When the trooper outside announces the arrival of her breakfast, she isn't even given the chance to ask about going to the gym later before he tells her she's to stay in her rooms for the time being.  
"The Supreme Leader's orders"

She leaves the food to sit untouched on the tray and when the knock comes for lunch, she doesn't even bother answering. 

She's not wallowing in self-pity, not at all. She just can't stomach the thought of food due to her being sickened by herself. 

_We had something going here. Maybe not something particularily good, but at least amiable? My days didn't feel like a punishment, I did what I could to fill them with meaning. I made good use of the never-before-seen resources I had access to. I had started to form some sort of truce between myself and the one person standing in the way of peace in the galaxy! I was on the right path, I'm sure of it. And then I chose to undo all the good we had accomplished. For what? Revenge? Self-satisfaction? To prove a point? No-one has ever been less of a worthy jedi apprentice than I._

She can feel him then, on the outskirts of her borders. Not quite wanting to reach all the way to her, but still somewhat curious. She's afraid to let him in and she's certain she wouldn't do anything to keep him out, should he want in. She's scared that she wants to tell him how sorry she is but she knows she has no words to express just how deep that sorrow goes. All it does is eat at her insides.

  
  
  


The next time she turns over in her bed, away from the wall and instead facing the room, he's there, watching her.  
He stands leaning against the far wall, arms crossed infront of his chest, looking relaxed on the verge of bored.

She can't compel herself to speak. But in her head the only thought is _I'm sorry for violating your mind like that, I wish I could take it back_. She tries to keep it to herself, loath to show weakness, even now. Afraid to break their eye contact she hardly even dares to blink. But she does sit herself up, back against the wall, trying her best to mimick his expression of boredom. She suspects that all she manages to do is crack a molar.

  


They stay like that for an unknown passage of time. Seconds, minutes, an hour; who knows? Rey eventually succeeds in quieting her mind, in the wake of all her chiding comes a staticky quiet. It's almost like meditating, but instead of focusing inwards or on a fixed spot or object, she focuses on Kylo Ren's eyes.  
They're not tinged with yellow, like how she has read Dark Force users can be. Had he fallen too deep down the path of the sith they would have lost their pure darkness. She realizes she has never thought him too far gone to save.

She can feel it when the connection starts to withdraw, he must too, because the moment before he's fully gone she hears him say _I'm the one who has things to apologise for, not you._

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first draft of this chapter had Rey all heart broken and super depressed, but then I thought, "she's a strong, independent woman, god damn!"  
> I can't picture her falling apart at the seams over something like a boy behaving like an ass. Sure, she's been abandoned by her family, but I like to think that hasn't defined her, in terms of abandonment issues. I think she can overcome pretty much anything.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this took me a while. I have been away on vacay and also been struggling with how to proceed. This is a long-ass chapter but I think maybe I should have had more backstory from the beginning? If I would do this one all over, I would have done it differently, switching back and forth from both of their PoV more.
> 
> But here we go, Kylo both now and then!

The first time Ben met Snoke in the flesh, before he got his new name and a new purpose to his life, was the night he burned Skywalkers temple down.  
Snoke must have kept a ship nearby at all times, just waiting for a chance like this, because barely an hour passed between his pulling the hut down over his uncle's head, and a craft landing to whisk the survivors away. For Ben, it was a busy hour. It was in that hour he killed for the first time. 

He killed the other students, the ones who attacked him and the ones that just didn't side with him instantly.  
He had thought it would become easier with time, the taking of lives, but it never did. He feels every death as it claws at his steadily disintegrating soul. But those first ones were the worst. Especially the children.

The ship that lands on Yavin IV, next to the burning rubble, invites him and the remaining padawans into it. A black clad figure with a mask that conceals both face and possible humanity is accompanied by the everpresent voice in Ben's head, telling him to just leave. When they dock with Snokes ship, they have shed their old identities and beliefs, none amongst them hesitates to kneel infront of what is to become their new master.  
They did not yet know how cruel he would prove to be. 

They are introduced to Snoke's Knights of Ren that very evening, stripped of both their beige clothing, their convictions and their names. Come morning only four of the eight that left Yavin is still alive, and three of Snoke's original Knights have lost their lives. All by the hand of Ben. He slays the old master, and his eyes gleam of yellow and red as Snoke praise him.  
It's the first time he can remember that anyone has ever praised him, that anyone has expressed pride or love for him. Finally he feels like he is where he was supposed to be all along, like he finally belongs somewhere. Like he is home. 

From there on out he fights every day to keep the humanity, that he never manages to kill completely, hidden. It's his biggest shame and secret, the cause for all his doubts and failings.  
He tries to kill it by torturing his knights and whoever is put in front of him, and in turn being tortured by Snoke. He does it by welcoming pain, by feeding it and nurturing it. Pain both physical and mental. 

There was a few glorious moments, just as he plunged his saber through and out of his father, where he thought he had finally done it. That he had, once and for all, managed to fulfill his masters bidding. That he would finally be able to make someone truly and lastingly proud of him.  
Then he heard her scream, and the conviction was lost to him. Instead he regretted murdering his father. And Snoke noticed this failure.

When he failed to kill his mother, he wasn't even all that surprised. He had always felt more of a bond to her, after all. Why Snoke was so sure that the killing of a father that he'd never had that much contact or connection with, would be what would tip him over, escapes him. After all, his legacy and power comes from her.  
Killing his father might have been nothing more than a warm-up. Snoke might have realized that had he demanded the death of his mother, he would have rebelled at once. Maybe he thought that once he had comitted patricide, matricide would come easier. 

Close, but no cigar.

Despite this he feels relief when she dies.  
At least he can no longer fail at that, at killing his mother.  
At last there is no living thing too precious for him to let go of. Nothing he cherishes and wouldn't hesitate to strangle the life out of.

He was fooling himself, and he probably knew it all along.

\---

He has made so many mistakes in his life, he wouldn't be able to pick the top ten out. But him conspiring and planning to get the scavenger aboard his ship should come quite high. Not only once, but twice! He is a slow learner, it would seem.

Seven years, give or take, has passed since the night when he thought he killed off Ben Solo. And now it looks like he has brought him back to life.

How did this happen?  
Wasn't this exactly what he had promised himself he would never let happen?  
He has slipped, he has let his guard down, he has forgotten to remember who it is he's dealing with.

This is the girl who had him believe he had someone on _his_ side, for the first time ever. The person who told him he wasn't alone and who promised him she'd help him, that she'd stay by his side.  
This is the girl who, when push came to shove turned on him, just like everyone else always did. Who discarded and betrayed him. Who didn't stay, who chose just about any and everyone else before him. Who made him feel insignificant and exchangeable and failed and dumb, dumb, dumb.

And here he stands, thoughtlessly extending a hand to her and feeling like an electrical current is spreading from where their fingers touch out over his entire body, constricting his chest and kicking him in his fucking useless, decietful groin.  
He hadn't even thought he _had_ a libido before her, but now it's here, and with a vengeance it's making itself more than apparent.

In a knee-jerk response he tries to extrict himself from her grasp, but she holds fast, refusing to let go of either his hand or his eyes. As she looks into his very soul and calls him by his chosen name, his hard won title. Not even hearing Snoke dub him Kylo, Master of the Knights of Ren felt as sweet as hearing her call him Kylo Ren without malice or ridicule. But with a sort of breath-less reverence he never would have thought her capable of, least of all directed at him.

His brain short cirquits, he's rendered speechless by her honest gaze. When she finally grants his hand the freedom needed for him to disappear from her suffocating presence, he fears he was left standing there, struck mute before her, for far too long for comfort. It's not until he hears the doors close behind him that he realises he has made his way back to his quarters wholly without his notice.

And there he stands, calling himself names, mentally flogging himself for being the weak, pitiful creature that he is. It's not until he feels the myriad of tiny cracks break the bones in his knuckles apart that he notice any of his surroundings again. And what he notice is a pattern of newly formed dents in the duracrete wall next to the door. He still hadn't pulled his glove back on and his blood has left smears all over the wall. Shaking his hand out, he splatters blood over the floors and ceiling alike, as he stalks towards the fresher and his, constantly in need of resupply, stock of bacta.

When he wakes in the middle of the night to a sharp pain in his fingers, he chooses to attribute it to his outburst rather than the dream he vaugely remembers, where he found himself back in the library with Rey.

\---

Kylo Ren actually has a lot of ideas about how to make His First Order a more efficient tool for managing the known galaxy. Building giant weaponized planet-sized instruments designed to take out entire systems was never something he found neccessary, or even desireable. The funding needed to realize Starkiller Base were ludicrous. That Snoke thought so little of the lives required to build that behemoth was no surprise, but that he was willing to deplete the accounts of the Order to fullfill that megalomaniacal idea of dominion was the first sign Kylo got that he might have hitched his wagon to the wrong bantha.  
  
And all this pretence that FN-2187 was the first ever Stormtrooper to abandon his post and defect? Kylo is explicitly aware of how many of Hux's soldiers have to be taken to “reconditioning” on a daily basis. The Stormtrooper program is far from the effective machinery that both Armitage and his father before him has tried to make it out to be.  
  
Since taking over the post of Supreme Leader, Kylo has had to focus most of his time, energy and force-abilities to deflect from the rather dubitable demise of the former Supreme Leader. The notion that one lone, untrained slip of a girl managed to take out not only Snoke but the entirety of the Praetorian Guard and, to top it all off, leave Kylo unconcious but alive, was too tall of a tale for him to expect it to not raise a whole fleet of red flags.   
The amount of damage control that has been needed to quell an outright mutiny amongst his ranks has taken up almost all of Kylo's energy. And to do that he needed to direct as much attention towards the Resistance as possible, and to persuade the people that needed persuasion that he needed the girl alive and not incinerated as soon as they found out where the rebel base was hidden took up the time freed when he stopped being eyed with ill-concealed suspicions.

It wasn't until earlier this week that he actually allowed himself the luxury of relaxing a tiny bit, for the first time since, kriff, he can't remember. Sitting in his library in comfortable silence with Rey those hours did for him what a full cycle of dreamless sleep couldn't have done. Even if he kriffed it all up by forgetting himself and allowing their skin to come into contact there in the end, he still feels like he can actually start making a move to put his ideas into motion now. He has waited long enough and he is pretty sure he has done the neccessary preparations for it.  
Today is the day he's gonna start his true reign as Supreme Leader.

Over the next standard week he sets about putting his different plans into motion. His first order of business is to finally put a stop to Hux's Jedi-like abduction/purchase and brainwashing of children from outer rim planets.   
Kylo Ren feels convinced in his being sent away from his parents, as had he done something horribly wrong and in need of punishment, was what cemented his fall, what irrevocably pushed him over the edge and down the abyss into the darkness. Had he not been forced so completely to cut himself off from everything that made him a flawed and human person, maybe he would have felt he had more choices than just the two.   
Several of his fellow padawans at the praxeum told stories of how their parents had been forced to give them up entirely when Skywalker came along. All forms of attachment was to be abhorred and avoided.  
  
Years later, with a new master, Kylo Ren found himself listening to Snoke's assertive ramblings about how fondness was for the weak of mind and spirit and compassion was a tool to break the resolve of the strong. The same convictions, different reasoning behind it.

 

The day he has chosen as the day to truly step into the role of Supreme Leader, he starts by calling Hux to one of his smaller and more easily cleaned meeting rooms. Already he has both an inkling and a hope of how this reveal of his plan will end.  
He rarely, if ever, makes use of Snoke's old throne room. Kylo haven't really felt the need to use it much, not because of what happened there, but because he wants to distance himself from the kind of reign Snoke led. He has no wish for throne-sitting and ruling from the shadows. He has a genuine wish to relieve the galaxy of it's many ailments. And General Hux might be one of the last true believers in Snokes, substantially different, vision.

Armitage is of course obstinate. Without the Stormtrooper program he has “perfected”, how does Kylo suggest they will keep the galaxy's inhabitants in check? How does he propose they ensure the systems already joined with the First Order stay faithful to the cause, and how does he plan for them to keep furthering said cause?  
Kylo listens in silence. He can see the agitation building within the red-head, the colour of his face clashing tremendously with his hair. The calmer Kylo becomes, the more frantic Hux grows. Finally he get's to the real question, the heart of the matter.  
What place will General Hux have in this New First Order of Kylo's?

Kylo can see the realisation dawn in his eyes the second he asks that question. It's with an all-encompassing satisfaction coursing through his body and out through his lightsaber, that he plunges it deep through the chest of the vile red-head he has been waiting to snuff the life out of for far too long. He keeps their eyes locked through the whole process, not wanting to miss the exact moment life leaves Hux.  
  
Once all light has left his watery blue eyes and only an empty dullness remains, he calls the 'troopers on guard outside in to dispose of the body.

A few hours later he makes the demise of the General public knowledge throughout the Order, and he leaves no room for hesitation that from now on, anyone who dares to question his orders will get the same. No matter how high up in the chain of command one might be, Kylo Ren is Supreme Leader, and his words are law.

 

He falls in to some sort of a routine. Over the next standard week he enforces a lot of new decrees, the abolition of the Stormtrooper program only being the first.  
  
Next he sends out envoys to both outer and mid-rim systems, enlisting voluntary participants of the New First Order Army. For many of the inhabitants of the galaxy, the promise of somewhere to sleep, three meals a day and a purpose is all the incentive needed for them to enlist willingly.   
From now the Stormtroopers sign a ten-year contract. That any and all transgressions against a signed contract will be punished with death is very clear from the beginning.  
Still the Supreme Leader manages to enlist millions of new recruits within days, filling up the need created by the destruction of Starkiller Base and the Supremacy alike.

Then the Supreme Leader opts to start production of new armor and armament facilities, and he chooses to place these on the poorer outer rim planets. The shipping and redistribution of the material needed for such production might be viewed as an unnecessary cost, but it's one the Supreme Leader is willing to weather.   
The funds freed from not having to pay people for children or the upbringing of said children to an age where they finally can generate more than what they expend, will in the long run make up for these new costs.  
He might be somewhat aware where this idea is coming from, but he elects to push it down, using the pretence that he want's to gain the support of the galaxy, not through terror but by seeming like a rational choice. No thoughts of a tiny girl sold into slavery, left in the desert to fend for herself for decades, comes in to consideration.

In just a few days, the First Order has created more opportunities for employment than what the Republic managed to supply during their entire regime.  
  
For now the laborers in these new facilites are payed little more than housing and food, but with the promise of being given a usable skill and steady, well-payed work later on, maybe even off-world, it's a chance few can afford to turn down.

The good-will and gratitude this elicits from the galaxy's poorer systems is almost enough to make up for the destruction of the Hosnian System. At least in the mid- and outer rim. The Core will likely never forgive nor forget, but those systems are still out of the grasp of the First Order, and for now Kylo is content with this. 

The long term plan is to create a following of loyal and grateful systems from all around the galaxy, in time enclosing the Core worlds, leaving no room for any other choice than subjection to Kylo's First Order.

\--- 

Each evening he, shortly, mind you, entertains the notion that he is far too preoccupied to stop what he's doing to meet up with the scavenger, and each evening he finds himself standing by her door, waiting to accompany her to his library.   
  
Each evening, as they part ways, he feels a renewed sence of vigour, of determination and energy.  
And each evening, he finds himself unable to stop himself from extending an invitation to do this again, for her to allow him to sit by her side and listen to her speak her mind, to take solace in the peace brought to his insides by the Force, whenever they are near.  
  
It's not long before they even start to talk.   
Unbeknownst to her she helps him in deciding what and how he is to handle the changes he wishes to implement.  
With her as his sounding board he develops new ways of thinking, he sees new ways for his order to take.

This evening start out like so many others before. He walks down to his library when he notices his not getting any work done. He starts to get fidgety the longer the afternoon drags on, these days. Unable to concentrate on what lays before him, he dismisses the newly appointed General in charge of the First Order Army. She has been making quite the passionate speach these last twenty minutes, but about what Kylo can't, for the life of him, say. Suffice it to say that she seems utterly dedicated to his ideas of how the Stormtrooper program should be handled in the future, thus making her a wise choice to replace Hux. 

He feels Rey, her Force signature, as an ever-present static in the air around him nowadays, never fully absent. As he walks through the ship, closer and closer to the library, the feeling shifts, taking on a purring, preening sort of quality. When he turns the corner to the final hallway, everything comes to a stop, a stand-still. As he lays his eyes on her, where she stands, outside the doors, waiting for him, he can only suspect she feels it too.  
  
The air leaves his lungs, his heart swell, the blood in his body runs for her alone.  
He has to force himself to keep walking, without pausing and giving himself away.  
  
”Sorry if I have kept you waiting”, he says to her in a low voice. When in her precense, it seems he is unable to fully control his vocal cords. Lately his voice has been dropping lower and lower, sometimes he finds himself sounding down right husky, when talking with her. He tries to keep their conversations to a minimum, imploring her to do most of the talking, offering up as few chanses as possible for him to make a fool out of himself.  
It's hard.  
  
”No worries, Master Ren” she says with a wink of her eye. He can't be sure, but he thinks she has made a game out of it, to try and call him something different each time.  
  
Except for when they part. Then she always calls him Kylo Ren. And his heart clenches both in sorrow, regret, elation and something he doesn't want to name. 

When they have been seated for a while, reading in silent contemplation, Kylo simply taking refuge in the stillness that always comes over him in here, with her, she once again surprises him.  
  
”Would you mind letting me try something out on you?” As he looks over at her with question and confusion in his eyes, she seems to realise she has forgotten a part of the communication. ”I mean, in the gym, with you. Like a sparring session.”  
  
He remembers the last time they tried that out and hesitates. He lost control then, and it took him quite a while to regain it. She has a way of making him rash (even more so than usual). He likes this new arrangement they have, were he to mortally wound her, or even worse, offend her in some unforseen way, this might all come to an end. He's sure she can see all these doubt flitter over his face, for she rolls her eyes so far back in her skull he fears she might topple out of her chair.  
  
To help hide the smile he can't reign in, he rises and sweeps swiflty out of the soft golden light amongst the books, in to the stark light of the corridor beyond. _It'll be my funeral_ he thinks to himself as he turns his back on the tranquility, to face something unknown. 

  
  
\---  
  


  


He is such a stupid boy. 

  
  
\---  
  


  


He forgot. She got under his skin, made all his carefully constructed shields crumble, made him weak and stupid and she tried to trick him.  
_HIM_ , the Supreme Leader of the First Order and the Galaxy by extension!  
She sends those images his way, tries to trip his mind up, trick him into losing focus, into forgetting what and who he is.  
  
He is _not_ someones love interest. Never has been, never will. The thought that someone like her should willingly subject herself to those fantasies is ludicrous.  
Still she keeps up the pretense, won't give up the asinine plan he's sure someone else than her must have come up with.  


  


He tries to get away from her, to save her from both of their embarrasment. To save her from a reaction he can't be held responsible for.  
  
Should he just go with it? Ravage her, take advantage of the situation and pretend to give in? Could he?  
  
Could he keep his composure, should he find himself next to her, naked in his bed? Would he be able to just take what he needed and leave her, feeling ill-used and fooled?  
  
He knows the answer. So he needs to get as far away from her as possible. She has eaten and scratched all his resolve away, soon he won't be able to resist. Tasteless stratagem or not, sooner or later, he has come to realise, it _will_ work. 

  


All those years at the praxeum, explicitly forbidden from what Luke called ”carnal pleasures”. Then all those years under Snokes watchful eyes, explicitly forbidden from what his new master called ”pathetic human weakness”.  
The other Knights of Ren, who had been older when they joined Snoke and therefore already ruined in his eyes, called it 'sex', or 'fucking'.  
They shared crude stories with Kylo and the other fallen jedi younglings, the men claiming they knew exactly the way to pleasuring a woman, how to make her scream in extasy. The women among them laughing at these stories, but Kylo never figured out if it was because they were wrong or if they were right.  
  
_(Once Snoke knew of these story tellings, he cut the penis off the Knight who dared defend his choice in sharing his exploits. Kylo and the other Knights stood silently by and watched. But that memory isn't what fills Kylo's head right now. If it did he might have less of a struggle with this whole Rey-situation.)_

All those years, repressing any and all flutterings of sexual nature, the ones fleeting and easily let go of, the ones he couldn't control while he slept and the ones so powerful he had to resort to self harm to keep in check.  
  
And of course, let's not forget about the feelings awoken in him when he first met _her_ , from the moment she tried to defy him, shoot him, though almost frozen stiff from fear, to when he realized just how powerful she really was.  
The sexual frustration and confusion that awoke in him he couldn't hide from Snoke, and no matter how much agony he put Kylo through, they never fully disappeared.  
  
All those years spent _not_ learning how to handle these feelings, these stirrings, they are now coming back to haunt him. 

  


She can't let this be, of course she can't. She has never known what's best for her, or when to give up.  
  
How someone so hell-bent on bringing about their mutual pain and destruction can be the same person who survived that Force forsaken shithole of a planet that Jakku is, he will never understand. She's such a bundle of contradictions, he'll never untangle all the threads that make up the person now trailing hot on his heels, refusing to realise this is _not_ the time to corner this particular animal/monster/Supreme Leader. 

  
But she does. And he reacts.  


He traps her, like how she has trapped him, but with physical force instead of by assaulting her mind. He feels her whole body quiver under his hands. So close, yet so far removed from him. Further and further she slips with every second he keeps her locked down against her will. He wishes he could stop, just walk away, but he fails. He slipped, he engaged in a game he wanted nothing to do with, and here they are.  
  
He tells her he doesn't want her, but the painfully hard erection straining against his pants tells an altogether different story. He doubts she fails to notice this, and he fills with shame. Not only did he say those things and treat her like that, he _reacted_ to it, like he _liked_ it. 

\--- 

He stands, still partially clothed, in his shower, for far longer than he would like to admit. Not even the freezing water threatening to drown him can fully erase the proof of their run-in, the pulse of blood in his groin refusing to cool down.   
  
He is frozen solid before he gets out of the fresher, and then he just stands in front of the mirror, looking at himself. His brain is either too chilled or still too devoid of blood, because he can't make any sense of his situation. He can barely recognize the person staring back at him. 

He has lost all feeling in his extremities by the time he notices a shift in the Force. What has become a constant static, a white noise whenever they're not in each others presence, suddenly grows still. It feels like his mind is expanding, not by his design, but rather because there is suddenly more room for it. It's like the space he occupies has suddenly doubled, and he realises it's because he now has full access to her space as well.  
  
All of a sudden, they share all.  
  
And he feels all.  
  
He is in her, in more ways than one.  
  


\--- 

  


Once he is alone in his head again, he looks to the pants he discarded on the floor outside of the fresher. Remembering one stray thought from her, he lifts the part of the trouser leg he shoved up between her thighs, up to his nose.  
It smells of her.  
  
He comes in his dripping wet and freezing cold boxers, then and there.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, what did you think? Would dearly love feedback.


	11. Through pain

He doesn't keep her confined to her room as a punishment.  
It's more of a precaution, a guarantee that he won't succumb to anxiety regarding whether or not she'll be waiting for him.  
If she'll want to continue their nightly ritual.  
  
He does it to give himself some peace of mind, and that peace could only be gained by removing the possibility of her waiting for him altogether.  
By removing _her_ possibilities.

He needs this reprieve, a few hours alone in his head, without the constant reminder of her, her, her.  
Just a fucking few, precious hours where he doesn't have to worry about what she's doing, what she's thinking.  
She can manage being locked up for a short period of time. She spent more than a decade on Jakku, after all. 

Someone else might have felt bad about locking her up in her tiny quarters, but fortunately for Kylo he's not someone who's guided by sentiment or misplaced morals.  
At least, he didn't use to be. 

Now, something has changed within him, his focus has shifted. 

  
  


He remembers the moment his heart betrayed him.  
The moment it started to beat, not out of vindictive hate for every single person who had ever wronged him, but with something new, and unknown.  
He can feel the wet cold of the snow seeping through his layers and freezing him down to the bone even now, months later.  
Everything was ice and unforgiving chill, but inside of him his heart started to pulse: warm, slick and heavy. It seized in his chest, filled him with terror and blinded him with the awesome power and beauty in front of him.  
  
In her he recognized something he had always been searching for, been waiting on.  
His other half, his equal. His soul mate.  
Her, snarling amongst the snowflakes, her every feature bathed in blue and her eyes burning with rage and disdain for him. Her victory making her ascend, grow beyond the forest, the trees, the whole of Starkiller base. Leaving him behind.  
  
She was glorious, and he was for ever lost. 

  
  


_”Unbalanced”_ , Snoke would have called him. He hadn't seen anything, Kylo muses.  
_If he thought me unbalanced then, what would he call this?_  
Kylo fears the answer would be something he's not at all prepared to face. Because the truth is, he doesn't _feel_ unbalanced.  
Far from it, actually the opposite. He feels calm, almost. He can't be sure, after all he hasn't felt anything approaching ”calm” for much longer than he cares to remember.  
But inside of him, there isn't only hate and rage now, scorching all that he is.  
In the centre of him, there is a tight ball of serenity, of molten light. Of calm.

And it is connected to the prisoner, locked in her rooms aboard his Stardestroyer.  
She's currently rolled over on her side, hugging her knees to her chest and looking pathetic. (Her word, not his. He knows far too well he isn't in any position to call someone else 'pathetic'.) 

All his precautions with locking her away in the physical plane, and he still isn't strong enough to shut her out entirely.  
He truly does his best to keep her out of mind and out of sight, but some things still leak through. No sound nor visuals, only fleeting bursts of emotion.  
And all of them are filled of her shame.  
Maybe it isn't that he's too weak to keep her out, maybe it's she who's too overflowing with feelings to keep them contained?

How can she be so full of self loathing? It's a self hatred rivaling his own and he'd be impressed if he wasn't so used to her always meeting, and surpassing, his every standard.  
He wishes neither one of them would know this feeling as intimately as they apparently do, but what can you do.  
And come to think of it, he probably should feel even more hate directed at himself than he currently does.  
If we're being totally honest, there really isn't any amount of hate he could direct towards himself that would be enough. Maybe even he has limits to his capacity for hatred?

The heart of the matter is: he needs to focus. He has a mission, a task at hand.  
He knows of only one way to feed himself the power to do so: through pain. (Physical, not mental)

He could have demanded different accomodations, once he took over the role of Supreme Leader, but he didn't dare risk it.  
Should he start living a life exalted beyond what he's grown used to, he feared he would change. The day Snoke stopped living amongst others was the day he lost the ability to see the larger picture. By removing himself from the galaxy, he made himself unfit to rule it.  
Kylo won't let the same thing happen to him.

So he stayed in his spartan lodgings, with the bed that barely fits him in it. With the scratchy linens and the unyielding mattress.

All his studying the Force, both from the light side and the dark, have had one thing in common. Harden the body; harden the mind. 

Through pain he gains power. He always thought the code had got that part wrong, _"Through strength I gain power"_ they taught him. But isn't strength the same as power already? Isn't pain more powerful than passion?  
  
_Peace is a lie, there is only pain._  
_Through pain I gain power._  
_Through power I gain victory._  
_Through victory my chains will be broken._  
_The Force shall free me._

  


He doesn't give himself any time to brace or prepare himself, instead he digs his thumb down into the bundle of scar tissue at his left shoulder, where she stabbed him with his own sword, _No, not your, never yours. It only ever belonged to her._  
  
The pain is gargantuan and impossible to shy away from. It burns all else from his mind and gives him the strength he so sorely needs. The strength to fall back into the memories of the few hours that has passed since his grasp on reality shuddered and cracked.

 ---

Laying on the cot with the pain bursting from his shoulder and out through the rest of his body, he can finally bestow himself the luxury of focus. Really examine what he has seen, what he has felt. To not shy away from it, but truly dive in.  
He gives himself permission to be afraid, to fear what he might uncover, but to start digging still.

And he _is_ afraid. Of the damp spot left by Rey on his pant leg. Of what it could mean.  
That he knows nothing? For sure.  
That he has misjudged her? Maybe.  
That he has misjudged himself? Always.

Could it mean that she isn't here with a higher agenda? That she isn't sent to torment him, to drive him to the brink of insanity? That she's here as a solitary player, and not as a brick in a larger game?  
  
Could this mean that it truly has been her dreams he has seen? Her unabridged, uncensored subconscious? Is there actually a part of her, no matter how small, that sees _him_ the way he looked in her dreams? 

He thinks he's finally ready to admit this to himself now.  
Because of what he now has learned, of what he saw and felt.

When she teared down her shields and invited him in to her bed and her body, she also left all the doors open in her mind. And just like she gained access to his memories that first time she transgressed inside his borders, and took with her his lessons in lightsaber combat so that she could best him at Starkiller, he has now learned all her carefully guarded secrets.

That she can't be sure whether she's drawn to him because of the bond, or if the bond sprung to life because of the instant kinship and fascination she felt for him.

That she gravitates towards him, not only in the Force or in their shared power, but with a yearning in her very flesh.

That her core is alight with a burning desire, for _him_. 

That against both her judgment and her will, she feels for him. Compassion, lust and longing. An unquenchable thirst to be near, to be known by him, most intimately. 

How she struggles with all these conflicting emotions; she both wants him more than she's ever wanted anything, more than water in the desert, more than shelter from the sandstorms; and at the same time how she knows this to be wrong of her. That she thinks her feelings for him is a betrayal that will cost her what little she has claimed for hers.  
And how she fears she still won't be able to withstand the pull he has on her.  
  
How she, more than all else, wishes to claim him as her own.

He now knows that the dreams and visions she has shared with him is but a small part of all the fantasies she's had starring him.  
He now knows how horrid she feels about them when she awakens, and how she still wishes to return to them every night.

And with all this new knowledge comes the questions:  
  
Is there actually a chance that there is a person in this galaxy, a human girl he has dreamt of for as long as he can remember, who he regards as both his equal and superior, a girl he fears could change _everything_. Could she not only exist, but also regard him in a similarily enamoured way? Could she actually have feelings for him, other than disdain and loathing?  
  
Could his life be allowed to amass to something else, something different than this never-ending struggle and torment?

The chance for that to be true seems to him too slim to be even concidered, but still he fears he will regret it for the rest of what is sure to be a short and angst-riddled life if he were to not grasp it with both hands and all that he's got.  
  
Should he not at least give himself a chance for something else, if the opportunity is presented to him?  
Is he not worth that?

  
  
  


No.

  


  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys keeping up with the leaks from epix? At first I was like "nah, don't wanna ruin it", but then I remembered how incredibly dissapointed I was with Deathly Hallows and how I STILL haven't gotten over Snape's death. I think if I hadn't had as high hopes as I did I would have been able to deal with that betrayal better (avid Snarry shipper). So now I'm all over everything that's leaking! Just to keep me from getting my heart ripped out of my chest if everything goes to shit, you know.


	12. Step into this room and dance with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title has little to do with the content, but Madrugada's song with the same name is a treat.

Rey wakes next day with a splitting headache. She's been tossing and turning all through the night, never getting more than a few minutes worth of fretful sleep at a time.

Each time she's fallen asleep, her treacherous mind has offered up memories of what she did, of what he said, of all the poor choices she has ever made. From keeping that ridiculous hairstyle for fifteen years straight on the off-chance that that was the only thing her parents would recogninze of her, up to the last few days string of catastrophic impulses.  
  
Did she really show him, in explicit detail, just how deeply he affects her? Why? What did she hope could be gained by that?  
  
She doesn't love him, she's not ”in love” with him, she knows far too much about him for that to ever come to pass. 

Still, she does feel for him. The truth is, he brings forth so many feelings in her, she can hardly keep track of them all.  
  
He has made her feel strong, vulnerable, important and cherished. But he has also frightened her, terrified her, broken both her heart, her mind and countless others. He's not _a good man_. He's not worthy of her (or anyone elses for that matter) love. 

And still she was willing to look past all that, for what? For treating her somewhat humanely, whilst holding a knife to the throat of everyone she knows? Like, literally **everyone**.  
(To be fair, she doesn't know that many people, but it still is a dick move.) 

What was she thinking? What would she have done, had he not ended their altercation in the hallway like he did? If he had kissed her, how would she have reacted? If he had acted on all his foul promises, would she felt she had accomplished what she set out to do? 

If she's honest with herself though, he never made any allusion to wanting to do any of those things he spoke of, he just accused her of wanting him to do it.  
And she did want him to. She wanted him, and she confessed to it. 

 

It's not entirely her fault, is it? She had to raise herself, really. There was no-one around to offer up insights into the human, or xenomorph, psyche.  
How to act around others when all her base needs are met is something she hasn't had to deal with before.  
  
  
Up until that point where Finn took her by the hand and hauled her ass off of Jakku, all her interactions had been based around survival.  
  
To keep on interacting when there's no pressing need? She wishes she knew how to do it effortlessly, but she would have needed years of training for that to happen, she suspects.  
To keep a conversation flowing, to know when to speak her mind and when to shut it, those things doesn't come naturally to her. What parts of her inner monologue to best keep silent and what parts to push down even further, she hasn't learned to make the distinction yet.  
  
She thinks on what she knows of Kylo.  
That he felt alone for the most parts of his adolescense, (even if he probably wasn't as alone as she).  
  
That he was shipped off to Skywalker, who's social skills she has first-hand knowledge of, so for him to have learned how to properly interact with others at the temple might be to wish for too much.  
  
That he then spent years under the ruthless and brutal thumb of a sadistic master who probably didn't think kindly at all on attachment and camraderie.  
  
  
Their stylted sessions in the library might be the closest he has come to unguarded and easy conversation since childhood.  
  
It's like a blind leading a cripple, really. The two of them, bonded through the Force and unable to shy away from this modicum of social interaction, however unwelcome it may be, might prove to be the only way either one of them will have to face their shortcomings in this particular field.  
  
  
Should this make it more or less humiliating to fail in front of him?  
Maybe her awkwardness doesn't even register with him, he might not be able to tell appropriate behavior from whatever it is she's been doing.  
  
_For the love of the Force, I hope that's the case_ Rey tries to console herself, as she rolls over in bed once again.  


 

***

 

Even tough the trooper who's bringing her breakfast lets her know she's no longer to be on lock-down, she still can't find the energy to leave her lodgings.  
It took such a short time to form a habit, to come to expect and crave his company.  
These past few nights on her own isn't enough to break that habit.

But she won't go tonight, even if she's allowed to. 

_”I'm the one who should apologise”_ he told her. Had he meant it? And apologise for what? For keeping her locked up, for stealing her away, for showing her kindness and then pulling the rug out from under her? She can't know.

"Please" he asked her, as worlds were on fire and the future split in two with such finality, there could be no compromise.  
He had sounded so broken then. Like his whole life had led up to that moment and now he was afraid that he had made all the wrong choices and would lose whatever it was he was hoping to secure for his future.

Could she go back to that fateful day, she would try so much harder. To stay still, to listen, to bargain.  
To not leave him behind.

She thinks on his broken "please" and how she was the one who broke him. His trust, his hopes.  
She took what she needed and left him behind.  
Just like she did the other night, when she took what she needed to fullfill her own desires, without concideration of where that would leave him.

"I'm the one who should apologise"... They have both done too many unforgivable things towards each other.  
Can the slate be wiped clean? Can they start anew with no scores to settle? 

What purpose would that even serve?  
_Why does it need to serve a purpose? Can't I just want to do this, build something new with him without it having to serve anything other than us? Our connection, our bond, our lives?_

Would he want that? Could she ask him? 

The questions flit through her mind with such rapid speed she never has time to ponder them long enough to find an answer. 

Still she stays, molded to the bed, the lumpy matress, the coarse blanket, the stale smell surrounding her. Her thoughts the only presence in her mind.

Whenever there's a knock on her door announcing meals, she doesn't answer. She mearly turns to the other side in the bed, curled up around herself. 

Turning down food is such a foreign concept to her, not even her being sick from food poisoning has kept her from thankfully accepting food whenever offered before.  
It's like her mind is too full of all her questions to leave any room in her for anything else.

She thinks she might be losing her mind.

The solitude, the isolation. She thought she had mastered the skill of it, through years of hopeless waiting in the desert.  
But this is something new.

She wasn't prepared for this.

 

She turns over in her bed once again. The gnawing in her innards might be from hunger, might be from angst.

It's all the same.

 

***

 

There's a banging at her door, loud enough for her to be unable to ignore. She blinks the sleep from her eyes, the chronometer trying to convince her two full days has passed since she last looked at it. It hardly seems likely, but as she drags herself out of bed and find her legs having difficulty supporting her, she suspects that it must be true. She has fallen down into a pit of self-loathing and patheticness that has rendered her a sorry excuse for a person. _For forces sake, Rey, you survived Jakku! Why are you letting yourself unravel like this? What has become of you?_

The second she unlocks the door Ciam basically falls through it, having just been about to hurl her shoulder into it. She collects herself quickly enough, stating ”You look like shit. Smell like it, too.”

”Switch off” Rey answers, but turns and walks back in, allowing for Ciam to follow her. 

”Go shower, then you'll eat. I brought actual food.” When Rey only looks at her with tired eyes, she motions towards her blaster, ”I won't hesitate to use this, you know. I still haven't forgotten you denting my armour...”

Even if Rey severely doubts she'll be shot should she refuse, she's also really tired of herself and her self-pity.  
  
”I was just on my way to the shower, I'll have you know” she tells her, nose up in the air. As she walks towards the 'fresher she hears Ciam mutter behind her, _sure you were, sweetheart_. It brings a sad smile to her lips. But still a smile.

She hasn't changed her clothes, just slept in them all through the last days. Once she's cleaned herself she can't stomach to put them back on.  
Besides, it would probably render her shower moot, concidering how they smell.  
She walks out into the room, wrapped in a towel with her wet hair dripping over her bare shoulders. 

”Where do you keep your clothes?” Ciam looks around her, obviously expecting her to have some sort of closet. When Rey tells her she only brought the one change of clothes, she heaves a heavy sigh before producing a holopad and tapping something in to it.  
”Eat” she tells her once she's done.

She did bring actual food. Warm and cooked food. Vegsteak in broth and vegetables she doesn't recognize. It tastes amazing and Rey's stomach get's full way too quickly.  
By the time she's garbled it down, a droid has come by with a scratchy set of First Order leisure wear.  
  
_Just to keep you clothed while we wait for your new garments to arrive,_ Ciam implores her when Rey looks horrified at the First Order insignia that's plastered everywhere on the top and bottoms.

"Karking kriffs, even the undergarments have the logo on them!" she exclaims from the bathroom where she went to change into her new outfit. Still, it feels nice to wear something other than the outfit of the scavenger- turned resistance fighter -turned last jedi. She doesn't really feel like she belongs in them any more.  
Also they cover her, all of her. It's a nice change. No part of her bare, open for attack. Or scrutiny.

"You look like a corpse" Ciam tells her, crushing her hopes. "I thought you skinny before, but this? I sent for some pie while you were changing, I think you might need more than just nutritional food at this point."

 _You can't argue with pie_.

  


***

  


Ciam won't ask about what's gotten her in this sorry state. But she does remove her helmet, the smell of warm, tart pie bleeding out crimson berries, dribbling from Rey's chin proving too enticing for her to resist.

Rey almost laughs out loud when the berries drips down Ciam's chest plate, staining her pristine white uniform, but then she's reminded of blood, death and gore and the giddyness dies within her, before it even has the chance to grow to fruition.

But they talk. About pie, and how to prepare vegmeat for it to taste like food. About the Stormtrooper armour, what's good about it and what's abysmally uncomfortable. 

They talk, and Rey feels normal. Like a normal, human being, sharing a meal with a friend.

It's like balm for her frazzled innards. By the time the knock announcing the arrival of her clothing comes, she has both smiled and almost-laughed several times.

Ciam panicking to get her helmet on before anyone enters and sees her breaching protocol brings Rey back to reality with harsh unkindness.

The clothes provided her by her friend is similar to her old ones. There are vests, bindings, utilitarian trousers and tunics, all in muted grey tones. Even a new pair of boots are given to her. 

"Can I send the old ones off to the incinerator?" Ciam asks, toeing suspiciously at them where they lay, crumpled and crusty and so far from having seen any sort of 'better days' that they can barely be called boots by now.

"Whatever floats your spaceship, I can't imagine me ever wanting to put those back on now that I have these beauties..." Rey mutters dreamily, while fondling her new ones. They're made from supple rancor hide, the leather of the beast durable to the point of being indestructible, but having been primed to be soft and malleable. They will fit her like a second skin, Rey can tell even before having tried them on.

"No more of this, alright?" Ciam says as parting words. "Do what you must to keep your spirits above the surface, just, don't let yourself sink this deep again."

Rey conciders her black visor, thinks about how she would do anything for the people she counts as friends. And this trooper, her prison guard, is now amongst those precious few people.

"I'll try my best, buddy." she says, and she means it.

Once she's alone again the quiet and solitude doesn't feel as oppressive as it has done for the past days. And the thought of company doesn't fill her with revulsion any longer. 

She feels ready.  
She sits down at the edge of the bed, and then she calls out to Him.

She only has a second to panic about whether or not he'll answer her call, before he's there, mentally breathless but so obviously filled with relief at having her back in his mind that her doubts and fears quiet down, and lets her speak.

***

That evening she walks towards the library.  
How many times did she do it in the past? Seven, eight? And how many nights have passed since the last time; as many or more?  
She hasn't kept track of the days, weeks or months since she came here, to his ship. It's all melted together to a blur.  
A blur of hate and confusion, hurt and sorrow, but also of longing and belonging, and that most treacherous of feelings: hope.  


She stands outside the doors, waiting for him.  
The rational part of her is certain he'll come. Nothing but his severe indisposition would keep him from fullfilling a promise made to her, of that she's somehow certain.  
  
  
But the rational part of her isn't alone inhabiting her body, so still she fidgets. Nervous, that this might be the time, that this night will mark the beginning of a new era.  
An era where she can't turn to him ever again, can't trust him or put her hopes to him.  
Where she'll lose yet another person close to her.  
  
She feels him before he rounds the corner, she svivels on the spot, her entire being drawn towards him. Her need to see him in the flesh overriding all else.  
  
He sweeps in to the hallway, all billowing cloak and hunched over stance. _Just like always_.  
The falter to his step is such an infinitesimal one that on anyone else it would have been lost. But Rey is so finely attuned to him that she feels like had it been a grinding halt.  
  
  
His eyes daredn't meet hers quite yet. In the quarter-second pause as he turned the corner, his eyes fastens on her ankels, to fretfully flit over the lower part of her body, each time it ventures near her chest it darts back down, as had his eyes been burnt.  


With each step they dare sneak higher,  
To her clavicles, then back to her knees.  
To her neck, then back to her hands.  
To her chin, her lips, then back down to her feet.  


To her nose, her cheekbones.  
Her lips.  
The floor infront of her.  
Then slowly up the entire length of her, until finally, _finally_ his eyes meets hers.  


If she felt out of breath a second ago, all air now leaves her body. Or if it's frozen solid inside of her.  
There is no sound, no sensation, nothing in all of existance, except him, it's just...  
  
  
”Just you” he finishes her thought.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! Next chapter'll be from Kylo's perspective, I think i find that easier.


	13. Molten light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What time is it where you're at? Because here, where I'm at, it's smut o'clock.

  


***

  


Sound rushes in.  
He hears what appears to be the end of a long diatribe, in a voice that must have been steadily increasing in volume. Probably because the speaker/screamer became aware that Kylo was far from paying any sort of attention to what was being said.

How, what? Where even is he? He blinks and looks around, recognizing the war room, with all the holograms and plasma screens and First Order personnel in their grey or black uniforms.  
His body; it tingles.  
Like blood rushing through it after having been cut off for too long. His closed fists rests on the table in front of him and all around him, and it, stands people. His people. His generals, admirals, captains. One of them is shrieking. 

He tries to make sense of the words, shakes his head to clear it of the fog that seems to have rendered him, up until just now, both deaf, blind and without sensation.

The screaming stops, and with the absence of assault on his ears comes clarity.  
He reaches in to the mind of the person on his left, rifles through the topmost layers to get his bearings on the situation at hand. 

 

They're not happy with him.  
_Well no shit, shyriwook, that part was pretty obvious._  
But this is a meeting called together, not by him, but by them. All of them. His highest ranking officials.  
Because they fear he has lost it. Lost the sight of their goal. Lost interest in what they've all been working for, for so many years now. 

Control over the galaxy.

Did that use to be his dream aswell? Was total control and dominion over all of existence ever his end game? 

_Nah._

It seems the rest of the Order has figured that out, quicker than he himself did. (And he can hardly fault them for claiming him to have "lost it". He has, after all, no memories of how he got to where he is at this moment.)

His abolishment of the Stormtrooper Program is being brought to question.  
How he chose the new locations for their new factories based on how that could most benefit the populace, rather than the Order, is here and now encountering heavy opposition.  
And the fact that he hasn't started planning for a new super-sized weapon is met with, apparently raging, disbelief.

Someone else opens their mouth, to no doubt start their arguing with him anew, but he is awake now. In full control of all his mental facilities.  
They're gonna regret ever bringing him back to this state.  
Without even straining himself he lets the Force find his will and all of their wind pipes. He doesn't crush them, he just applies enough preassure to render them all mute.

 

He had been in his private study, the one where he told Rey about the traitor, and where he realized she harboured no romantic feelings for the former Stormtrooper. Had that knowledge made him happy at the time? Had he thought that meant her availability? _Nevermind that now, Kylo, focus._

He had been trying to work, trying to find a way to adress the worlds under First Order rule, to let them know that the rule of tyrrany would soon be over.  
But he had gotten lost in thoughts, _be honest, Kylo, call it what it was, you were_ daydreaming _. Of her, of Rey. Over what you thought_ she'd _want you to do. What she herself would have done in your position. And then the word 'position' had made you spiral away, like a loth-cat in heat._

Yes, that was what had happened, he had lost himself to dreams of her, dreams _from_ her. And then he had been summoned to the war room, and he had stumbled his way over to where he now stands, his mind unable to let the thoughts of her naked skin go. He can actually hear her breathy, panting 'yes' from the hallway.

_Snap out of it, Kylo!_

No wonder they had started screaming at him. He wants to scream at him aswell.

He might have come to the conclusion that he doesn't deserve her attentions. That he has done nothing to warrant him any aspirations towards love and fullfillment.

  


But she does.

  


She deserves to have all her dreams and wishes fullfilled.  
After a life that has mostly been made up of deprivement, losses and loneliness, he would do almost anything to make sure the rest of her life is the complete opposite to that.  
He would give her anything she wants, and if what she wants is him, how could he deny her something so readily for him to give?  
  
He might be broken and lacking in every sense, but what little of worth he is/has, she can have.  
  
Unfortunately, every time that thought crosses his mind, it's immediately followed by the knowledge that it might do her more harm than good to get a wish of his love and devotion fullfilled.  
It's a constant tug-of-war in his innards. The longing to grant her all her wishes, and the fear that he really should stay strong enough to resist, to keep her safe.  
  
But she has seen him, all that he is and what little he has to offer. She knows he has flaws and problems and that he barely is a functioning person.  
All the bits and pieces of Ben Solo and Kylo Ren doesn't even make up a full person, more a facsimile of an idea of who he was supposed to be. Who he wishes he could be, for her.  
  
And still, it seems like it only becomes increasingly clear to him that she knows all this too. And that she accepts it. Him, with all the jagged shards and contradictory impulses and the warring sides barely contained underneath his scarred skin.  
  
So how could he deny her the opportunity to at least get a chance to see if he could be what she wants him to be?  
He's not giving himself a chance, he is giving it to her. 

And ever since he has known this, he has had a really, really, hard time to focus.

Hence finding himself being yelled at by his inferiors.  
This really can't be tolerated.

He takes the time to go through each and every mind of the persons assembled. They are all slowly turning a sickening shade of puce, but never mind that now.

Of the nine people gathered, two actually has nothing against this new direction the First Order seems to be taking. 

He let's those two necks free. To the background sound of their ragged sputtering he raises his voice to be heard over it.

”Those who can't adapt, die. That's the law of nature. That's the law of the Force.”

It's not, really. Wasn't that the whole reason for his fall from the light: its disability to adapt? Well, maybe that only concerned the Jedi and not the Force in itself. In any case, the disability to adapt to the Supreme Leader's unpredictable moodswings is definitely not a law to the Force, but who are they to question him? It's not like any of them even have a voice at this moment.

 _Oh well, what's said is said_ he thinks as he crushes the remaining seven windpipes.

 

The two left alive looks to be doing their utmost to keep their trembling to a minimum.

”Commander Jexa, I hereby appoint you Chief Commander over production. Congratulations.”  
The (former) officer by the name of Jexa looks less than pleased, but nods and salutes. Kylo turns to the other one left alive.

”Captain Ahneron, you are now Fleet Admiral Ahneron, and the runnings of all Star Dreadnoughts now falls to you. Hail, hail"  
They both look like they have moved one step closer to the chopping block, rather than happy at having been promoted. _Maybe I'll have to have a long and hard look at the death rate among the Orders Commanders and Admirals. We do seem to have been going through them like wildfire in the past..._ Kylo stores that thought away for later and turns to adress them both.  
  
"I trust you will both handle your new responsibilities in a way becoming of your Supreme Leader's vision of the First Order.”  
He looks them both deep in the eyes, letting his dark Force fill them with his words, with his will. With his orders.

”You are both responsible for appointing trustworthy delegates that are commited to this, our shared, vision.”

They stand frozen, unmoving. Scared to set him off and incur his wrath. He starts to get annoyed at this before he remembers himself, ”Dismissed” he barks out and watch as they scurry away.

He's in the middle of calling on droids to clear the mess away, when suddenly he's hit with the certain knowledge: Rey would not approve of this sort of handling of business. 

_Hm, awareness must be the first step to change, yes?_  
Kylo feels rather proud of himself for coming to this conclusion, all by his lonesome.  
He also feels certain the end justifies the means, and had he let these people leave with their breathing apparatus intact, they would have caused both him and the galaxy an abundance of trouble. 

He leaves the room and is met by several droids carrying bodybags and stretchers, already assembled and ready to dispose of the bodies.

The fact that it took them less than two minutes to arrive with all material needed to do so, might speak of the high number of times they've had to do that before.

Too high a number. He'll have to reign in his more murdery impulses. Set an example. Show the galaxy that the New First Order won't be run by the same tyrrany as the old.

_Show Rey that I can be a fair and level-headed ruler, who'll work for the benefit of the galaxy, not only myself._

  
  


***

  
  


He returns to his private study, to try to get somewhere with his new project.  
He wants the galaxy to know. That with Snoke gone, things are going to change.  
The days of slavery and persecution are over. 

He did spend several years following his mother to different diplomatic events. He was her constant shadow during formal gatherings, informal assemblies and endless upon endless dinner parties.  
He didn't just learn how to dance at those, he also learnt how to talk to people in a way that made them listen. And not only listen, but believe.

His mother might not have been a particularily devoted mother to him, but to the cause, the resistance, she was all anyone could have wished for.

The hate and hurt that usually accompanies such thoughts are confusing him with their absence. For once, he can just brush past that whole part of remembering his youth, his parents, and instead go straight for the bits and pieces of his upbringing that he needs right now. The diplomat's son, that's the part he needs access to.

  "People of the galaxay..." _No, I don't want to ostracize those who doesn't consider themselves as 'people'._

  ”Loyal subjects of the First Order...” _No, I'm starting to seriously doubt there are that many out there who would consider themselves either 'loyal' or 'subjects'._

  ”Attention, worlds under First Order rule...” _Hm, maybe. I'll file that one away, if I can't come up with anything better, that'll have to do._

It's a long afternoon, bleeding in to a long night.  
There's no rest for the wicked, as the saying goes, and Kylo does have a lot of wickedness to try and atone for.  
  
Come what passes for dawn at the ship, and Kylo wakes up at his desk. He has fallen asleep sitting upright in his hard chair, and both of his buttcheeks have fallen asleep.  
  
He never did find any opening line more suitable, but still he feels confident that his speech will be tolerable enough.  
Now all he needs is some solid sleep, clean clothes and maybe, just maybe, a different set of eyes, another source of input into what he is about to do.  
  
That'll have to wait, though. Quality sleep and then shower. It's not what he would have called a 'plan' just a few short lifetimes ago, but his life has altered rather drastically in a short period of time.  
For now, he's fully content with planning eight hours ahead.  
  
He leaves his office for his private quarters, his head blessedly empty of distractions. 

 

Seven and a half standard hours later finds Kylo standing in his shower.  
The sleep was deep and dreamless, and he awoke feeling content.  
  
He needs to find someone suitable to be put in charge of public relations. Someone he can go over this new plan of adressing the galaxy with.  
A part of him wishes he could just put this on either Jexa or Ahneron aswell, but he fears that would be asking even more of too much of them.  
He'll have to go through the personnel files, and that is a task too tedious to be considered with a frown-less face.  
Maybe a droid could make the initial sorting, at least. 

He's toweling his hair dry when he feels her. He has but a split second to wrap the towel around his naked lower half, but he needn't have worried. She's only there in his head, not in full Force-bond.  
  
And considering the effect her mere voice has on him, he's happy she's not there to witness him go chalk white, then crimson, all in the span of a second.  
  
The bond has been closed off these last few days. He's felt it, like a wall on her end. Now it's opened and it's as if a headache he hadn't even realized he had has been lifted.  
Everything feels clearer, lighter, more as it is supposed to be.  
  
”Rey” he breathes out loud, and inside of him he can feel her smile hesitantly, before replying _"Hi, Kylo."_  
  
They both need a few seconds to just get their bearings straight, the long absence obviously having affected them both more than they had thought. It's a little bit like finding oneself on a solid, unmoving planet surface after having spent months on a small and vibrating spaceship.  
  
Everything is different and it's gonna take some time to adjust, but it's finally all as it should be again.  
  
He feels this, and she feels the same. From where the comparison originates neither one of them can know, but it doesn't matter. In this moment, they share all. Just as the Force intended them to.  
  
There's so much to say.  
There are no words.  
They don't need to explain themselves.  
They both want to.  
  
  
_”I drove you mad”_ Kylo starts.  
  
_”You did.”_ There's no point denying it, when bridging their minds like this, there can be no concealing or altering the truth.  
  
_”I thought you were here to ruin me.”_ As he tells her this she is given all his earlier musings. The ones in which he was so convinced she was sending him falsely constructed memories and dreams, only to decieve him.  
  
_”I have never lied to you, at least not since coming here.”_ she tells him, even though he already knows this to be the truth.  
  
_”I wanted to ruin you”,_ The confession should be hard, but it's not. They both know he doesn't want that any more. Maybe he never truly wanted it either.  
  
_”You nearly did.”_ With her admission comes the memories of the days she spent in her bed, locked away in her own mind, with only her shame as company.  
  
Kylo recoils from the memories. He let's them go to be able to get everything that needs to come out, out.  
_”I know you regret what you did, and you know I regret what I did. Can we leave that behind us with the promise to never do that to each other again?”_  
  
Rey is silent for a few moments. When she answers him she sounds sure of herself. _”Let the past die, right? This is something I want to let go of. I want to move forward. With you.”_  
He can hear a smile in her voice as she repeats his words back to him. It sounds like a fond smile.  
_”It is, Kylo”_ she answers his unspoken thought.  
  
They both remain quiet for a few heartbeats. Relaxed in the knowledge that they have started something here. Something new, but not fragile like a new-sprung sprout, but ancient and unfaltering, like a wroshyr tree.  
  
_”So what now?”_ Kylo asks, when he feels the time to be right.  
  
_”If you're up to it, I'd really like it if we could take up our library sessions again”_ she suggests. The hesitation and shyness in her voice uncalled for.  
  
_”I'll see you at our usual time, then”_ Kylo answers without pause. For good measure he adds her name again.  
_”Rey”_ he says. An assurance, a promise.  
  
_”I'll see you then, Kylo”_ she replies.  
  
He's left alone, but she's not gone. Like his arms or his pancreas, she's just there. Nothing he notices, but there none the less. An inextricable part of him.  
  
Just like it should be.  


 

  
He remembers to find out how her old friends are doing. He'll want to be the bearer of good news.  
Once he is assured that the few left of the former Resistance have all found new homes, he orders the surveillance to be pulled. _Let the past die_ he reminds himself.  
It's time to start living like he preaches.

He calls for a droid to start the odious task of trying to find someone within the First Order that could be suitable for PR work. Force knows they have a huuuuge problem with public image and no history of caring what so ever.  
He'll need to find someone close to a strategical mastermind and with patience for days for this to be doable.  
He's got millions in his employ, how big are the chances that none among them is suitable and and qualified?

 _Never tell me the odds_ he reminds himself before he has a chance to ask the protocol droid infront of him. Then he adds a silent prayer; _let's just hope I haven't already killed them._

He frets and fidgets all through the rest of the day.  
Snapping at droids, keeping well away from anyone living. He won't take any chances with his mood now, not when he has decided to make a concious effort to keep as many people in the Order alive as he possibly can.  
  
He's got an hour to kill before it's time for him to walk down to the library, and he opts to use it to calm his frayed nerves. With his back against the plastisteel windows of his chambers he sits in lotus position.  
Behind him the black vastness of space stretches for eternity, inside him: that same blankness.  
He calls on the dark to soothe, rather than ignite. That pit in his center that has been slowly but steadily increasing in presence is still there. His ball of molten light, his ray of brilliant darkness.  
It had always been there, never fully extinguished. Even though he tried with all his might he never managed to fully subdue that part of him, he never broke it enough to be forever bent, cracked and destroyed.  
It held fast, the resillience of the light. The resistance within. He just needed help to see it, to allow it to live on.  
He needed her. To give him that balance, to make him realise the darkness is only as black as the light allows it to be, just as the light isn't bright because of the abscence of darkness, but in contrast. The sides need each other. The two of them, they need each other.  
  
Without her, he would always be unbalanced. He didn't have a chance until she awoke in the Force.  
Now he can't stand the thought of waisting any more time.  
  
On the way to the library, he makes a concious desicion to leave his gloves off.

 

***

 

He feels her in the Force, her waiting, her apprehension. He can see her even before he rounds the corner that will put them in each others line of sight.  
  
But he wasn't prepared. What he thought he felt of her before can't compare to what it is to look at her. She's blinding. It's like he walked straight into a wall of light, of acceptace.  
  
He stumbles onwards, feeling clumsy and obnoxious, like a creature of night set on a path to destroy all that comes in his way. He is scared senseless that that's what's in store for her, that he'll smother all the goodness in her. That he is too far gone, too broken to be able to exist in the same universe as her without bringing forth ruination and mayhem.  
  
His inner turmoil is raging, up until the moment he finally let's go of the fright clinging to him, and lifts his eyes to her.  
  
And it all falls away. His doubts and fears, his earlier so firm belief of who he must be.  
All is wiped clean, only one thing matters.  
_Just you_ he can't help let slip, shattering the tense quiet.  
  
But she smiles at him and steps to the side to grant him access to the locking mechanism at the side of the entrance.  
”Shall we?” she asks with a soft smile.  
  
And yes, they shall.  


 

 

He can hear her stomach growling. The familiarity of it tugs the corners of his full lips upwards.

They have been seated in silence, just as comfortable as before, for hours now.  
He has kept sneaking glanses at her, haven't been able to refrain from looking at her every chance he's gotten. More often than not he has caught her looking right back at him.  
  
Always with a smile on her face.  
  
He can't remember if he has ever blushed this much before. He can't imagine there ever to have been any reason for it. But every time their eyes have met she has blushed, which in turn has caused his face to heat up.  
  
She really looks lovely with that pink tinge high on her cheekbones.  
  
Even now, smiling cheepishly over the loud sound from her abdomen, she looks so innocent and sweet. He never thought he would look at something like that without wanting to destroy and corrupt, but here they are.

"I think it's high time we call this a night.” However much he wishes to stay in this moment forever, he also knows that she has been neglecting herself these past few days. He will not be the reason for her going hungry, ever again.  
  
”But there is nothing that stops us from doing this again tomorrow, I hope?"  
He would abhor the nervous quiver to his question, where it not for the soothing effect her presence has on him. He ups and walks around the table, hesitates for a microsecond before offering up his ungloved hand to help Rey out of her chair.

She looks at his naked hand, then she lifts her gaze to his face. The look she gives him as naked as his offered hand.

"You should invite me over for dinner tomorrow, don't you think?" she challenges. 

He is about to answer her, because he thinks that's a grand idea, but before he has a chance she puts her strong and rough hand in his.  
And all pretence of dignity or restraint is lost.

He feels like the look on her face; enraptured.  
Like when they touched fingers across the stars, but less confusing. More like all the piezes of the puzzle that make out their lives have fallen into place. 

Without breaking eye contact or letting go of his hand, she slowly rises out of the chair. If she wanted to even the difference between their heights out, she is sadly unsuccessful. He still towers over her, standing closer than she has ever been comfortable with anyone else.

But the distance falls away, it's nothing. Their hands twists to lace their fingers together, fingers sliding in between fingers. Scratchy skin, hardened fingertips and calloused palms caresses with a softness neither one thought themselves capable of.

 _This part of me is for you alone_ , the thought echoes between them, equally true.

He pushes her backwards, until her backside hits the edge of the table. His shaking hand cradling the back of her head, his eyes undecided on where he wants them, on her lips or her eyes? They are slowly moving in closer and closer, soon his lips are quivering just above hers. Almost, but not quite, touching.  
It's all feeling and heady sensation.

Her own, unoccupied hand flitter over his chest, over the multitude of layers concealing him from her, from everyone.  
He pushes on her, gently, with his mouth and breath. She pushes back, and millimiter by excruciating millimeter the distance between them shrinks to only a twin set of shallow gasps.  
When their lips finally meet, it's almost as if by accident, and they both jolt as if shocked. He wants, needs to feel that again.  
This time he doesn't hesitate, he presses his mouth to hers, his lips slanting over hers and he finally, truly tastes her.  
She tastes like lust and desire to rival his own. 

She sits her butt down at the table and he lowers her down, down.  
Her throath produces a small sound of protest as her back is inconvenienced by the books beneath her, their sharp edges uncomfortable against the spine protruding from her unyielding backside.

The grunt from his lips is one of not only irritation, but indignation that his beloved books dare to cause her discomfort.

He punishes them by sweeping them all down from the table, using both the hand not in her hair and the Force.  
Ancient and priceless tomes falls to the floor alongside holobooks and painstakingly well-organised notes. 

His arm cradles her midsection, securing her closer to him and placing her more fully ontop of the table.

When her hand finally finds its way up to his head, the throaty moan escaping him suprises them both with its intense volume. Her nails raking along his scalp might be the most exquisite thing he has ever felt, so he can't feel self concious just now.  
Also, her reaction to hearing him respond like this to her touch makes any thought of embarrassment seem downright silly. She very obviously likes it.  
He can tell, because she does it again, and again. And then she sinks her teeth down into his plump bottom lip, and he can't keep from fisting her hair in one hand and using his conciderable strength to both cluth her bottom tighter, whilst simultaneously grinding her deeper down ontop of the table with his thumb leaving bruises on her hipbone as his finger's leaving marks of their own on her buttcheek.  
  
They're both groaning, sweating and panting. But suddenly the growling sound of her empty belly drowns all else out.  
  
With his forehead pressed against hers, they both laugh. Throaty, out-of-breath laughs that feels like they could cancel out the last thirty years worth of hurt from Kylo's life.  
  
Slowly he extricates himself from her embrace.  
Helping her regain her balance, trying to make her hair look less of a mess from his mussing it up. She straightens his jacket, not bothering to even try to bring any semblance of order to his hair.  
  
Once again they stand infront of each other, hands grasped and the air almost sparkling from sexual tension.  
  
”Tomorrow. We'll eat.”  
  
”You'll call for me?”  
  
”I will.” He wants to walk her out of the library, but if she hasn't noticed the state his arousal has put him in thus far, he is thankful enough for it to not push his luck further. So he lets go of her hand, telling her ”goodnight for now, Rey.”  
  
She probably knows why he wants her to leave ahead of him, but she is tactful enough to keep her eyes on his, offering him a chance to cling to decorum for as long as he needs to.  
  
”Goodnight for now, Kylo” she smiles at him, eyes glossy, face shining with a thin layer of sweat and her lips, _dear Force, her lips_ Kylo can't keep the thought contained, but they look like she has poored all of her longing for him into her kisses.  
  
Then she turns and walks away from him, and he doesn't feel abandoned or used.  
He only feels balance.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost 200 likes! If you like where this is heading, please tell your friends! I think we're coming up on the home stretch here. I'm still not sure how I want it to end though, any suggestions?
> 
> Haven't spellchecked this yet but I'm late for work and wanna post this before I leave town for the weekend, will fix errors later!
> 
> Also, if you don't have anything better to do, check out the song Molten Light by Chad VanGaalen.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gawd, this is gonna be sickeningly sweet. It's not even smut, it's just fluff drenched in treacle. How did this even happen??

”Rey, can I ask you...” Kylo can't meet her eyes but looks down at the hands clasped in his lap. ”When we touched hands through the bond, what did you see?”  
His voice is so small, so uncertain. She can tell that he wants to know but that he's at the same time terrified of what she might say. If it'll be what he barely dares to hope for, or something far less sentimental.

 

From the moment when they met up earlier tonight, him coming by the gym where she was trying to work out her nervous excess energy to pick her up, she has been anticipating this very question.  
He tossed her a towel so she could wipe the sweat off her face and neck, looking at her intently all the while, waiting until she was finished before he asked her if she was hungry, and if so, she was ready to leave.

For his rooms. For their ”date”. Is that what they're up to? Is that what she had in mind when she told him he should have her over for dinner? Is that what he thinks this is? And if it is, should she not go to it drenched in sweat and filled with dirty, lustful thoughts that no amount of hitting on things with sticks could dispel?  
Rey has never been on a ”date” before. When would that have happened? So she must confess she doesn't have the slightest idea of what people are expected to do in preparation for one. But she's pretty sure ”sweaty” isn't the look anyone would be striving for.  
But on the other hand, she's also convinced you normally don't go on dates with your sworn enemy either. Or the estranged son of your General and mother figure. Or the murderer of a revered smuggler legend.

So she dropped the towel in a heap on the floor and told him that _Yes, I'm hungry, let's leave_ and followed him out of the gym.

The walk over to his private rooms were a silent one. Rey never lifted her gaze from the floor directly in front of her feet and spent most of her energy trying to calm her erratically beating heart.  
When they arrive, she can't tell how long they've walked for, or even what level they're on. It doesn't matter.

”Please” he indicates that she should walk in before him, and she has a crazy notion that all of this has been a really, really long con, that he has played her just to get her to come to his rooms willingly, for some weird Dark side ritual where she'll be sacrificed to some long forgotten Sith lord and she has fallen for it, like the easily decieved orphan child of the desert that she is.

But then she looks up at him, into his eyes, and her mind quietens down. He couldn't trick her like that, not any more.

 

And so it stands to reason that she no longer can trick him, and to answer his question she must first be sure of what the true answer actually is.

What did she see? Rey more than anything remembers the feeling. The feeling of kinship between her and Ben Solo. Now she's not so sure.  
Of the name, that is. Of him she's more certain than ever, but she has come to realize that whether he's Ben or Kylo, doesn't really matter. They are both parts of the same person, and to exorcise one would be to do harm to the other. They are both, maybe not equal, but rather warring, parts of the one man sitting across from her. In a constant flux where the light and dark ebb and flow within him, growing and shrinking like the ever-changing dunes in the great desert of her old homeworld.  
If he could come to terms with that himself, maybe the war inside of him would quiet down? If he himself could accept the two different sides that resides within him, maybe he would be less volatile, more at peace?

But on the other hand, maybe that's not what he wants.

”What I saw... I'm not sure if I can say for certain any longer. Do you remember your vision?” She asks as a deflection and as a way to stall for time. He knows this.

”I saw the past, a memory. It became my memory. Now, when I think back to it, I more remember the feelings attached to it.” He hesitates, but still he pushes through. ” _Your feelings_. I felt those same feelings. How you felt you would have done anything to feel that bond of family again, how all you would ever want was to belong. That's why I felt so certain you would side with me.”  
His voice is steady and clear, but small. Sad about what he lost, what she has lost. About how profoundly he misread what the Force showed him and what that misinterpretation cost him.

”What the vision failed to show you was that I had already found that belonging.”  
Her mind quickly flits through images of Finn, Rose, Leia, Chewbacca, Poe, Connix and dozens of others. But it feels wrong to think of them when sitting here with the man who has brought them all so much pain and suffering. To sit her with him, casually dining and enjoying herself. What a betrayal. What would they think of her if they knew? She doesn't want to think about that, not now, maybe never. Instead she changes lanes in their conversation, ”You know, don't you find it kind of ironic that you, who is such an avid spokesperson for 'letting the past die' saw just that, the past, while I, who you claimed to be the one holding on, saw the future?” She smiles, a bit mischieviously at him. Taking the edge off the words.

”Yeah, well, the future you saw didn't come to pass, it would seem. So maybe what you saw was more a manifestation of you hopes? Of you 'holding on' to old dreams?”  
He's not on the same page as her, willing to let the gravity of their topic slide into something a little less ominous. _Go figure that Kylo Ren would be overly dramatic and unable to loosen up..._

Along the tethers of their bond her internal eye-roll trickles over to his conciousness, prompting him to defend himself.  
”Hey! I'm not 'overly dramatic'!” Unfortunately he says it in quite the dramatic fashion, tossing his hair and flairing his nostrils. She looks at him in as much of a 'point proven'-kind of way she is able to, leaving him to mutter a low key ”I'm just the right amount of dramatic, thankyouverymuch...”

She giggles. It's not something she can remember ever having done before, it doesn't sound like anything she would have thought her body to be able to produce. Neither did Kylo, apparantly. The bond overflows with his instant reaction to it, to hear her sounding so carefree, so happy, and in his presence? The swelling of his heart echoes back in her.

For a long moment they just sit there in silence, letting their hearts swell, pound and beat in synchronization. It feels like a moment of beauty, of clarity.

”I think maybe this is what I saw, what I felt in the vision.” Her voice is steady and clear, unafraid to give her hopes life, even though her heart and her future is on the line with these words.

He nods, answering ”That's a good vision. I get why you risked shipping yourself over into the hands of Snoke for it.”

”To be honest, I didn't think you'd take me straight to him when I did. And I definitely didn't think you'd meet me with a batallion of Stormtroopers either.”  
With this new dynamic between them, she has almost managed to forget all the history between them, but this exchange has reminded her of how they came to be where they are today. She'd be filled with shame at having forgotten about the friends left behind, had it not been for the bond. His contentment echoes so stable and constant back to her, making her pulse stay the same and her mind still. ”Hey, I have forgotten to ask, what's happening with the debris of the resistance? How are my friends doing?”

Kylo looks taken aback for half a second, then a slight shade of pink tinges his high cheekbones before he admits that ”oh, I pulled surveillance so long ago, I have no idea. But I could probably find out, though?”

"Oh, you did? Do they know that?"

"If you mean 'did I tell them', then no. But I suspect it ought to have been obvious, the absence of Stormtroopers is pretty noteworthy, once you have gotten used to them waiting around every corner." He pauses, but she can tell he want's to add something more, but hesitates. She can feel his reluctance alongside his need to know, his fear and his hope. "Would you like to get in touch with them? I guess... holding you here now, against your will, would be..." he drifts off, afraid to meet her eyes.

She wouldn't even need the bond to be able to read his thoughts, his face is as expressive as ever. His shame and revulsion fights a losing battle with his need to keep her near. But in her head, she can feel his struggle to cling on to what he know to be the right thing to do.  
Should she wish to leave, she has no doubt he will let her.

So why doesn't she want to? She thinks that if she only knew Finn is doing alright, she'd be happy to stay here. _Happy_ , for crying out loud.  
Happy to stay by the side of the Supreme Leader of a fascist regime, spreading out over the galaxy like a plague.

Apparently her face is also easy to read, because Kylo's quiet voice tries to contradict her. "That's not who we are, anymore." He finally meets her eyes, the simmering intensity behind them carrying the weight of the words. "I told you I wanted to change things, Rey, and I have. The First Order isn't what Snoke meant for it to be any longer. I have made all the changes I wanted us to do together, and now I don't know how to continue. I have asked you, so many times now, and you have rejected me every time. But Rey, please, know that I'm not what you originally thought, I'm not Snoke. I want to be better, and with your help, we could do so much good with the resources at our disposal."

It's basically the same speech he gave her after they fought the praetorian guards, after he killed Snoke. But now everything else is different. The circumstances are completely opposite what they were then; she's at peace, and she has a clear purpose.

He feels her answer before she even has the chance to voice it, and his reaction is instantaneous. The table separating them is sweapt away brusquely, by his body or by Force she can't tell, but suddenly she is in his arms, the back of her head in a tender but vice-like grip, her lips crushed under his. There is no hesitation, no restraint, only passion and joy.

It's very contagious.

***

"How will this work?" Rey sweeps her hand in a semi circle infront of her.  
  
"I guess I'll call on a droid and get them to clean up this mess, and then they'll bring dessert?" Kylo nips at her neck, as it's finally in an easy-to-reach distance. Rey is sitting across his lap in a large, black leather chair, which he sank down into maybe an hour earlier.  
Making out whilst standing proved to be too much of a challenge for it to be wholly enjoyable so he dragged her down with him. Now she has her arms draped around his shoulders and her head rests in the perfect position for him to keep tasting her skin.  
  
She bites down on the shoulder she's using as a pillow, to punish him for not answering her seriously.  
"Bad Supreme Leader, you know what I mean" she says as she herself seeks out his tender neck with her own mouth. She bites softly, then she sucks at the supple skin there, having already gleaned that he really enjoys that.  
  
"Don't leave any marks! I'll look like a teenager!" he tells her as he tries to get away from her, without moving away from her.  
  
"Hey! What's wrong with being a teenager?" she exclaims indignantly. She leans back from him, without releasing her hold on him, to look him in the eyes.  
  
"Good skies, I had forgotten how young you were..." he looks at her with dismay. "I'm almost thirty, would that make me a 'cradle robber'?" He uses a phrase he can't remember from where he picked it up, but he thinks it fits the conversation.  
  
"Well, you're not robbing anything anymore, I'm more than willing..." but then she cuts herself off, realising her words to have more than one meaning.  
  
Kylo can do nothing but turn as red as her, and then quickly change the subject.  
  
"I'm gonna try and find someone to run 'Public Realations' for the Order. To get the word out there, that things have changed, you know. And I was thinking you and I could sit down tomorrow and go through the basics of what we have at our disposal and how our resources would be best put to use. How does that sound for a plan?"  
  
"It sounds good. But you did mention dessert..?" she tries to untangle herself from him, but he tightens his grip on her and mumbles into her neck, "in due time, my dear" and then they start kissing again.  
  
They don't stop for several hours.

***

Rey had a hard time leaving Kylo's rooms last night, but eventually she did.  
  
She got her dessert, they made out, and finally she managed to extricate herself from him for long enough that her mind had a chance to clear of the heady fogginess of their lust. It was a struggle, but she really needed some time to herself, to come to terms with this new direction of her life she seems to have stumbled in on.

 

Even though she slept alone she felt him close by. It seems that the closer they come physically, the stronger the bond grows. To shut him out was difficult, but together they made a concious effort to leave the other alone for the night, to give them both some room for 'quiet reflection', a phrase used freely in her Jedi books.  
  
Rey said she needed to sort through all her feelings, and to some extent that was certainly true, but she also wanted to 'take care' of herself without him as an audience.  
Unless she's a bit more sexually sated the next time they meet, she fears she'll throw herself at him.  
Even though she would like that very much, she also feels it would be wise to maybe wait a little before making that kind of irrevocable commitment, to truly 'sleep with the enemy', so to speak. She also fears that once they have crossed that particular threshold, she'll never be able to leave him again, even if she'd need too. Even if he turned out to still be more Dark than grey.  
  
So even if she wants him in any and all ways, she fears her judgement will be forever clouded if ( _come on Rey, it's **when**_ ) they take that final step and join together in flesh, as well as in Force.  
  
She does her best to impart herself with the conviction of how importat it is for them to wait with becoming physical. Unfortunately the thought of what all that 'becoming physical' might mean makes certain that her thoughts drift drastically off course, and before she falls asleep that night her fingers have all but cramped up and her legs are a shaking mess from how much she's been touching herself.

Still she feels just as sexually frustrated when she wakes next morning.

 

***

 

After a breakfast of that same gruellike porrige and brushing her teeth with that same card board-y toothpaste that's making her gums bleed, she decides on asking Kylo for both better breakfast and toothpaste, and desperately hopes that won't make her seem shallow and egotistical in his eyes. No sooner has that thought crossed her mind before she's stricken with the weirdness of it, that _she_ is worried that _Kylo Ren_ will think her egotistical. It's actually kind of funny.  
  
Minutes later an unknown trooper knocks on her door to bring her to Kylo's private office. It's that same one with the large table, where he told her about Finn and Rose. He's not alone in there this time, though. With him are two harried-looking humans with a number of huge holopads, stacked in piles.  
  
”Rey, welcome. Meet Generals Mitaka and Phox-Mi.” Kylo indicates the people with an off-hand gesture, his eyes smoldering, never leaving hers, giving her a look that's down-right filthy. ”They will go through our most recent supplications from systems under First Order rule and our finances, respectively.”  
  
The heat of his gaze makes her blush, and through the bond he asks her _unless you have some other order of business you'd like to attend to first?_.  
  
He's more forthright with his innuendo than she's used to him being, making her blush all the more furiously. The grin spreading over his face is worth feeling self concious over though. _I wish I could always see you smile like that_ she thinks, mostly to herself, but it bleeds over into his mind aswell. Making him blush in response.  
  
Apparently they've been standing quiet, smiling and blushing, for long enough that his employees find it exeedingly awkward, but neither one of them would dare to clear their throat to bring their Supreme Leader back to focus. Fortunately the very loud swallow Mitaka produces does the trick.  
  
”Yes please” Rey says, too loud into the silent room, and sits down at the table. 

  
  


She hadn't realized that the systems in the First Order-controlled galaxy actually dared to send in requests for help, when needed. Sure, many of the worlds are lead by crime syndicates that joined willingly, because the Orders' more lenient stance on slave-trade, drug cartels and corporeal punishment fitted them just fine, but many of the systems had to join the Order or face severe retribution. Sometimes of the 'obliteration' kind.  
The leadership of some of those forced worlds still try to make life for their inhabitants as bearable as possible. Or maybe they just haven't been punished by Snoke's old way of governing yet to be too afraid to ask for help.  
  
It's those entreaties they go through now, aid after natural disasters, famine and piracy just some of the problems the outer rim worlds face at a daily basis.  
  
Kylo tells her that when he followed his mother on diplomatic missions, they faced these same problems back then. And still the worlds suffer.  
  
”If you send help to one system, others will be left without and suffer for it. You can't help everyone, someone will always be subject to neglect because you chose to focus on someone else. And then dissatisfaction grows on the worlds who feel left behind, ignored, and new trouble arises."  
He looks at her with an all business-like approach, gone are the flirtatious and heated glances. It makes Rey understand the severity of this task. "We need to find a way to be everywhere, and in the meantime, we need to do some sort of galactic-wide damage control.”  


She's painfully underqualified to do this sort of job, she realises. The fact that Kylo seems to have such a high opinion of her problem-solving skills is endearing, but wholly unfounded.  
She can't help but feel vertigo, almost, like she's standing on the precipice of a great divide. On one side stands the old Rey, and the old Kylo. Their relationship familiar in all it's confusing and contradictory emotions. On the other side stands _this_ Rey, new but not improved, and _this_ Kylo, the one sitting next to her, filled with confidence in her and her abilities that she can't for the life of her figure out where he's got them from. What has she done to make him think she's capable of solving this millennia-old problem?

He seems to realise how all this is affecting her, probably she has a look of sheer terror plastered over her features. She's thankful for him sending Mitaka and Phox-Mi away, even if she fears it will make them doubt her just as much as she doubts herself.  
  
"Rey look at me. I might have thrown you straight down in the metaphorical deep end here. Maybe I ought to have started with smaller problems, like, I don't know, conditions here at Finalizer, but I thought you'd much prefer dealing with the rest of the galaxy. But we can dial it back, we needn't start looking in to all of this right away, it can wait." His voice is calm and comforting, his gaze intense. She think's she can feel him in the Force, trying to soothe her.  
  
She must look even worse than she feels.  
  
"Kylo, don't get me wrong, this is definitely what I thought I signed up for, and definitely what I hoped we would be doing together with the Order, but at the same time..." she swallows, feeling on the verge of tears. Afraid that he'll realise he has misjudged her. That he'll retract his offer.  
"At the same time, I don't think I'm ready for this, this responsibility? I can't make these decisions! I wouldn't know where to start!" She still doesn't cry, but it's not far off. She might be on the verge of a full-scale panic attack. She isn't even sure what it is she fears more, failing the galaxy now that she finally has some semblance of a chance to impact the course of history, or if it is the possibility of her failing Kylo that's the real issue here.  
  
He reaches for her then, loses his fingers in her hair and pull her towards him. Her cheek resting over the hard planes of the chest that's hidden under layers upon layers of starched and uncomfortable clothing. "Shh, cyar'ika, don't fret." He pets her hair and calms her down. More tender than she ever would have believed him capable of.  
  
"I don't mean for you alone to find the answers to these question, simply for you to offer up a sounding board. I need you to be someone to bounce ideas off, to question me and my generals. To make sure we don't stagnate or fall back into our old ways. That we lose sight of this new goal we have, you and I."  
He kisses the top of her head, nuzzles her hair. She breathes more easily and extricates herself from him enough that she can meet his eyes. "We'll start slow, work up your confidence. Together."  
  
Words can't convey how thankful she is right now, so she hopes her hand against his chin and the excruciatingly tender kiss she bestows upon his lips will do it for her. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that didn't end where I thought it would...  
> But I'm guessing that's alright, they still have lots and lots of issues to work through together. I just want to post this chapter to force me into letting it go, so that I can move on with the story. It's been over a month since I last updated it and I worry that people will forget about it and then it'll be just me, writing for nothing but my own doubts.


	15. I'm still afraid, but if anything, that's what's going to save me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! I bought so many Star Wars novels in december and have been reading those to the point of me not being able to focus on writing my own fanfiction. Also, real life with work and stuff, you know... But here it is, a short and sweet new chapter.

The rest of the day goes by in a slower form. Kylo doesn't dump any more numbers on her, and they dial it back to more of a conversation. It feels familiar, like their library sessions. They talk, back and forth, and Kylo takes notes.  
They eat at the over laden table and a droid brings them so much caf they both need to go pee once every hour.

”Can we please call it a night?” Maybe they have both been afraid to bring this day to an end. Kylo because he doesn't want Rey to think that he thinks she's had too much, and Rey doesn't want him to think she isn't taking this seriously. But in the end she doesn't even care any more, she's too tired.

”Yes! You're tired, of course. Or are you hungry? Do you wish to eat?” Kylo is both eager and nervous. He's been all business all day now, but the same instant she falls back to their old dynamic, he follows.

”I could eat” she says with a smile. ”And while we're on the subject of food, what do you eat for breakfast?” She means this to be a smart way to work up to asking for something other than the gruel, but judging by the way Kylo's ears shines bright red from underneath his black curtain of hair, it seems he thinks she's asking something quite different.

”Oh! I, for breakfast? You mean...” he stutters, before she realises what he thinks she's asking.

”I only ask because I have kind of had about enough of eating porrige that tastes like toothpaste. Or maybe it's the other way around...” she interrupts him before he has a chance to grow even more nervous. ”Seriously Kylo, I don't think either porrige nor toothpaste is supposed to taste like that.”

He huffs out a laugh, with open mouth and everything. ”I don't eat breakfast, and I guess I've grown used to the toothpaste, I mean, at least my gums stopped bleeding after the first year.” He still smiles at her, sheepishly. ”But it shouldn't be impossible to find another kind, I guess? If not on board, then someone can bring it back...” he drifts off. Maybe he, just like she is, wonders whether or not she should be allowed to go wherever she likes and buy her own fricking toothpaste. Isn't she free?

”Maybe we could go somewhere, you and I. Get off this ship. And maybe you...” he looks down, away from her. In a rush he forces the words out. ”Maybe you would like to go see your friends. And maybe after that we can meet up somewhere, anywhere, else?”

She can tell he does this, says this, for her to know that he trusts her. That he want's her to know that he won't force her to stay here, against her will. And she can tell he's scared shitless of letting her go, uncertain if she'll ever come back to him if he does.

That he has to make it known to her, that she can leave, says a lot about this new relationship she finds herself in. She's with someone that has to clarify that she's free to make her own choices, and if he didn't she wouldn't be sure of it.

It's not normal, it's not healthy. It's not romantic, or optimal or something that should feel okay.

It doesn't, but the alternative? What would that be? If she wants to be with him, the person the Force seems to have chosen for her, then it'll have to work.

Maybe the Force didn't ”choose” him for her, maybe it only connected them. Made sure they would find each other.

And now that she has found him, she can't imagine not having him in her life. The bond between them seems to purr, blissfully. Making everything seem all right.

She has been quiet for a long time, she can tell Kylo is uneasy, fidgety, and trying his best to not let it show.  
”Yeah, I'd like that. Go somewhere with you, I mean. See something other than this ship of yours, see something new, with you. And yeah, then maybe on my way back here, I could track down Chewie...” The air grows imperceptibly thicker. She darts a glance at Kylo, who seems to be frozen. Han and Chewbacca are the two topics most off limits to him, it would seem. The list is long though, he has made such an abundance of questionable decisions in his short time in the galaxy, his list of ”subjects best left alone” is longer than your average nightwatcher worm. To try and defuse the new tension, she offers another suggestion. ”Or maybe I could drop by Finn and Rose and let them know of everything that has happened. ” His sharp intake of breath reveals his nerves, but at least he's breathing again.  
  
The glitter to his eyes tells her that her answer is, for the most part, what he wished for. ”What will you tell them?”

She frowns, both eyebrows and mouth draws down of their own volition.  
What _will_ she tell them? That the threat from the First Order is gone? She can only hope they'll believe her.  
That there is a new force in the galaxy that will work for the greater good? She's not even sure of that one herself.  
That she is gonna sit beside the (former?) Supreme Leader and try to make all the changes the galaxy so sorely needs? That she's gonna stay by Kylo Ren's side, not to keep an eye on him, but because that's where she wants to be, where she belongs?

How could she even begin to explain that, and to Finn of all people?

”R'iia, I don't want to think about that right now, I think my brain has given about as much as it can for the day.” She laughs, but it's an exasperated laugh.

”Then would you like to join me in my quarters for dinner tonight again?” He asks, almost shyly. It's sweet. A word no one would have ever thought applicable to Kylo Ren.

But maybe to Ben Solo.

”I'd like that very much.” she answers before she has time to ponder that too deeply.

As one they get up from the table, exit the room and make their way back to Kylo's apartment.

 

\---

 

The rest of the evening passed in much the same way as the previous one. They ate, talked and they kissed. To part was even harder this time, but still Rey feels the need to hold on to this last piece of control she has over her feelings. To hold on to the last chance of independence she might ever have.

She's not sure why she's so certain of this, but she is. If she's ever to leave this ship to go visit Finn, it'll have to happen soon, because she doesn't think she'll be able to whitstand him much longer. 

He kisses her like a man possessed, like his life depends on her kissing him back. His closeness makes everything else lose meaning and just melt away. As hard as it is to stop kissing him now; if they were naked? If she felt his skin pressed against hers, sharing his body heat and pulse? Why would she ever want to leave that? 

The way she longs for it, the way she can barely contain her lust and need for him, makes it clear she needs to go see Finn, as soon as possible. If only so that she can return to Kylo, for good.

 

She's in the process of packing up what few items of clothing she has aquired, when the knock on her door announcing her breakfast surprises her by coming in Kylo's voice. 

He took her plea for better brekfast to heart, it would seem. In his hands are a tray of not only caf and a porrige with a distinctly less gruellike quality to it, but also pastries and fruits. She just knows the smile overtaking her whole face must look downright ridiculous, but it still doesn't stop her from getting stuck with it, blocking him from entering whilst she looks her fill. It is a rare sight, it must be told. Master of the Knights of Ren and self-proclaimed ruler of the galaxy, bringing this mere scavenger an offering of food? It must surely be close enough of a miracle to warrant her staring at him like this.

"Rey? May I come in?" Maybe he also feels this to be a behaviour best kept under close wraps, and not advertised out to the populace at large, because he's looking more uncomfortable by the second. 

"You'd be more than welcome in, even without the food, Ren" she tells him as she finally remembers to move to the side to admit him in.

 

They, or rather Rey, eats in silence. Something is obviously weighing on Kylo's mind, but Rey don't want to push it. He'll tell her if he wants to, she's certain.  
The same instant she has swallowed her last piece of fruit and chased it down with the last, cold dregs of the still bitter caf, Kylo clears his throat and motions towards the open bag on her bed, the two changes of clothes halfway between being stuffed down the bag and strewn over the bed.  
"...so, what's up? Are you leaving?" _will you come back?_ echoes in the silence that's left afterwards.

She had forgotten about it, her plans. As soon as she saw him, all else fled her mind. Her priorities shifted.  
There's a lump in her throat and she wishes she hadn't eaten as much as she did, because now she feels nauseous all of a sudden.

"Only for a little while." She can see it in his face, the effort to hide all that's raging just beneath the skin. Why did she need to leave? She had some sort of reason, right? She can't quite remember just now, not when he looks like he's trying so hard to not make this any harder for her by showing her how hard it is for him. "I need to leave so that I can come back, Kylo. I'm afraid that if I stay here much longer, I'll never be able to force myself to leave your side, and then I would for ever regret not telling Finn in person about this. About us." And even though she knows how hard it is for Kylo to hear any mentions of his name, she still barges on. "And I want to tell Chewbacca that he was right. That you weren't lost to Snoke. That there were still parts of the boy he knew, left in you." She leans over the table, to look into his eyes.  
"I want him to know that he was right about you."

They sit silent for a few heartbeats, and then Rey realises something else.

"And I'm guessing my leaving depends on whether or not you have a ship to lend me? I just recalled I didn't come here in a craft of my own."

"Well, you might have to go see your old resistance buddies in a TIE fighter, but I'm sure they won't shoot you down as soon as they see it, right?" He means it as a joke, a way to ease the tension that's been building between them. It shouldn't be this hard, this many unspoken words between them, concidering they could just step inside the mind of the other and see all they need to say, but it wouldn't feel right. They should be allowed to censor their thoughts. Being open about their feelings isn't something that comes natural to either one of them.

"Well, times sure are tough for the new Supreme Leader if there's a shortage of ships under your command already, sweetie. You might want to look into that." She nudges his foot with her own, under the table. "What have you been spending all your 'cociderable resources' on lately?"

He nudges her back, "Well, had you payed more attention yesterday you would have known where all those resources were heading, but I guess you had your thoughts elsewhere occupied, you filthy little scavenger..." He uses that voice she has grown accustomed to since coming here. A husky, raspy voice that's full of innuendo and ill-concealed flirting. It makes goosebumps break out all over her body and blood to flow to her cheeks and down to between her thighs.

It would seem they have been as serious as they have the capacity for, for now. She thinks he understands her reasoning for leaving him a bit better, at least. As she leans over the table to capture his mouth under her own she tells him they need to make up plans for where and when they are to meet up again.  
He might have said something, the name of a planet, a time-frame, but she has lost the ability to focus on anything other than the feel of his lips, his tongue sliding against hers, his breath fanning over her face.  
It's such an overload of sensations, and it's too sweet to not pay all the attention she has on it.

 

He pushed her half-packed bag and her clothes down on the floor and dragged her down ontop of him, on the bed.  
That was hours (or maybe just minutes?) ago, and now her skin has been burning for so long and try as she might, she can't fill her lungs with as much of his scent as she'd wish to, leaving her feeling delirious and feverish. She holds on to him for anchoring, to stay in this moment and not let her worries run away with her. He holds on to her just as tight.

"I don't want to let you go," Kylo whispers. "I'm afraid something will happen, and that we'll never see each other again." He holds her face between his large hands. They cover her from chin up to the top of her head.

"Nothing could keep me from returning to you. To this." Her thumb caresses his bottom lip. It's even more full than usual, her biting it having made it swollen, an almost angry red.

"I'm still scared". Honesty. Open and unabashed. He's not afraid to show her his weakness and need, and it's making her feel like she's even more precious to him than she knew.

She don't know what to say to that. There's nothing she could say to ease this fright of his, that this will all be taken away from them. Just as she knows there's nothing he could say that would make her less afraid of losing it all.  
Instead she asks him where they'll meet, and when.  
  
They settle on them rendezvous-ing in a week's time, that should be enough, right? For her to get to where she's going, to catch up and assure her friends that all is as well as they could hope for, really.  
And then for her to get to wherever it is Kylo wants to take her.  
He says he knows the perfect place for them to go, a planet he hasn't been to in ages, but it's where his ancestors are from, apparently. Not Vader, but his maternal grandmother. Apparently she was a queen, a senator and a warrior, and she grew up by a beautiful lake on a lush and verdant world.

All this he tells her in that low soft voice of his. She can tell he longs to show her this side of him, of his past, but at the same time it's obvious that he's uneasy. Understandably, he's not sure how well he'd be recieved there if he were recognized. When he visited the old palace with his mother as a young child, he often heard people who knew his grandmother say he looked a lot like her, but Rey feels fairly certain this huge tree of a man can't possibly resemble a short, and by the sound of it, delicately featured woman. No matter how beautiful she might have been.

"Will you stay out of trouble while I'm away?" A part of that question is really 'will you refrain from murdering anyone while I'm away', but it would sound too harsh to put it so plainly. And worded this way it also entails 'will you keep from getting murdered'.

"I'm not sure how much use I'll be around here whilst you're away, really. I can already imagine me having a hard time concentrating on all that legal and economic shit."

"Then delegate! Shouldn't that be your right, as high chief here?"

"I thought that was what I was doing by briging you onboard, sweetheart..."

"Delegate better. I'm gonna need to spend as much time as possible doing this, and not much else..." she drifts off as she starts kissing him again.

There's no time for them to get too lost in each other this time, Kylo's comm has been pinging more and more insistently, and they can no longer ignore it. They need to start getting ready to meet the world outside of this room, outside of this little bubble they've created for themselves. This reprieve they have carved out of the block of obligation and expectation that they are usually encapsuled in.

 

She gets the coordinates to Finn, and a small ship that doesn't scream "first order" or "danger! shoot!", and then she's ready for take off. Ready to leave.  
Kylo has been by her side, setting it all up and aggressively ignoring his comm.  
 

"I know there's someone who'll be glad to se me leave, at least" Rey says as she looks pointedly at his arm where the pinging is originating from.  
  
Kylo doesn't respond to that, instead he tosses her bag and her staff in through the opening of the ship, so that he can take her hands in his.  
  
”Do you know of the mandalorians? They were a race of warriors. Proud, fierce. They had a saying, _We are one when together, we are one when parted._ ” She understands what it is he's telling her. Even if she leaves the ship, goes to see her friends, she won't leave him. Not really. The bond between them will always be there, making sure they are never alone again.

"One standard week, starting now. I'll see you again at Naboo, by the lake." She squeezes his hands but daredn't kiss him again, afraid to start something she won't be able to break away from. Instead she takes a deep breath, bows her head down and enters the ship. "Don't be late" she says in a quiet voice, fully aware that he'll hear her.

As she goes through the start up sequence, she can feel him inside of her mind. _We are one when together, we are one when parted_.  
He still feels close to her, solid and clear.

As her ship slowly gains distance from the Finalizer, his presence slowly dims. He's not gone, far from it, but he doesn't take up quite as much space in her head as he usually does.  
She'll be alright, of course she will. She'll miss him, of course she will, but she'll be alright. She's almost completely convinced he will be as well.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're still with me, next chapter should def not take two months.  
> Do we want to see what happens with them when they're on their own? Rey and Finn/Chewie reunion? Kylo's hassles with ruling without terror as a motivator? Or should we go straight to vaycay-mode?


End file.
